As a child, I loved to watch bowlers’ actions face-on, a
standard perspective in the days when the Beeb could only afford cameras at one
end. Many of my most memorable pacemen in particular date from that period when
I’d channel my studies of the people I’d watched on TV into personations in the
back garden. England’s John Snow had a distinctive delivery action but my first
fave was someone whose notable quirk was the way during his run-up he held both
arms low.
Sarfraz Nawaz was a staple of
Northamptonshire’s attack in the Seventies, winning many caps for Pakistan
along the way. Although taller than most, it was his moustache which also made
him stand out. More recently he has been credited with inventing reverse swing,
which has become an essential part of a fast bowler’s armoury.
Talking of cricketing moustaches, as much part of the
mid-Seventies as flares and ‘O’ level revision, Dennis Lillee’s facial fuzz was
even more recognisable, and remains his trademark to this day. His bristling,
bustling demeanour and devastating pace combined to hammer thorns in the side
of England on many occasions, from 1972 to the early Eighties,
when his moustache was complemented by a coloured headband. He was no shrinking
violet, often controversial for the sake of it, but always watchable. Even in
his slower dotage, his skill and accuracy knew no bounds. Had it not been for a
few brilliant Botham performances, the 1981 Ashes could well have been named after Lillee and Terry Alderman who between them garnered 81 wickets!
In mid-decade, Dennis and Jeff Thomson wreaked so much havoc
against the West Indies that Clive Lloyd fathomed that his side needed to meet
fire with fire. Thus the strategy of four-man Caribbean seam attacks was born.
At first, this looked thrilling. The brutal bouncers, run-ups so long that they
began almost from the laps of front row spectators, the prospect of athletic
evasive action or humungous hooks for six
all added to the atmosphere of open hostility. The snorting Andy
Roberts, smooth-as-silk Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Wayne
Daniel got away with almost anything but after a year or two the novelty began
to wear off rapidly. The average over rate dropped from around eighteen an hour
to eleven, batsmen suffered more nasty injuries and, much as I adored Caribbean
cricket, the bowling philosophy was making Test matches increasingly tedious to
watch. Eventually the authorities had to introduce restrictions on the
short-pitched stuff and minimum over rules to restore the balance between bat
and ball before boredom and broken bones took control.
Holding in full flight was a wonder to behold, and his
predecessor Keith Boyce always lively but my favoured West Indian quick was
Joel Garner.
Apart from the fact he played for Somerset, he didn’t rely on a relentless
sprint to the wicket to breed fear in the facing batsman. Off a mere dozen
loping languid strides, ‘Big Bird’ could deliver a snorting lifter, in-swinger,
off-cutter or devastating yorker at will, using his six feet eight frame to the
max. He was equally brilliant in one-dayers as first-class matches; nobody has
got close to his career ODI economy rate of 3,09 and his 146 wickets were
achieved at under 19 runs apiece. Imagine how effective he would have been in
Twenty20!
By the mid-Eighties he was playing second-fiddle to Malcolm Marshall, another extraordinarily efficient and economical multi-format speed
merchant. He was a Hampshire stalwart for many years but it was wearing the
palm tree badge that he was at his most dangerous. In the 1988 series over here, he grabbed 35 wickets at
12.65, virtually unplayable and utterly beguiling: an all-time great. Best of
all, in a team of towering giants, he was a wiry whippet of only five feet
eleven.
I was lucky to follow cricket in an era chock full of
fabulous fast bowlers. Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Waqar Younis,
Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose were the cream of
an abundant crop. In more recent times I have admired Glenn McGrath’s
metronomic line and length, Dale Steyn’s rhythmic action and Shoaib Akhtar’s
thunderous pace, but where are the English in my list?
Yes, I am impressed by Jimmy Anderson’s ability to swing it
both ways but I can’t say I like him that much. A generation earlier, I was a
big fan of John Lever’s left-arm swing bowling. Indeed, I saw quite a lot of
him playing for Essex. In the Nineties, I was a fan of another left-arm fast-medium-pacer
reliant on movement through the air for his success. This Yorkshire-born
Gloucestershire pro became a one-Test wonder in 1997 but he secured my loyalty
by dint of his name: Mike Smith, of course!
Top-class namesakes are rare, nor are there a plethora of
fellow redheads in the sport. An exception is Glen Chapple, who bowled his
fast-medium seam for Lancashire across more than two decades. I was at Lord’s
for his almost singlehanded demolition of Essex in the Nat West Final of 1996,
the year of his one and only England ODI appearance. Nineteen years later, I again
felt deeply sorry for him when, in his forties and his hair less ginger than
salt and pepper, form and fitness conspired to end his cricket career with a
first-class wicket tally an agonising fifteen short of the thousand milestone.
Another long-standing stalwart of the Red Rose was David Hughes. Although primarily a left-arm spinner, he first attracted my attention
with the bat. I was watching live coverage of the 1971 Gillette Cup semi-final
against Gloucestershire when, in deep gloom and time running out, he proceeded
to flay 24 off John Mortimore’s final over to win the match.
Of those who did manage a longer run in the England side, I
quite liked Norman Cowans. His run-up was almost Holding-esque but without his
fellow Jamaican’s end product. However, my favourite has to be Gladstone Small.
Barbados-born, his hunched physique created an illusion of having no neck,
exaggerated by the extravagant shirt collars worn at the time. His comical
appearance nonetheless disguised a very useful quick bowler and, as well as a
Warwickshire favourite, he was Man of the Match in England’s 1986 Boxing Day
Test success in Melbourne.
Spinners have barely featured in this chapter. As with many
cricket fans, it’s the pacemen who take my eye, all speed, strength and sizzle.
There’s something almost primeval about a middle-stump sent cartwheeling by a
90mph nip-backer, which a gentle bat-pad catch simply cannot match. The slow
bowler’s art is very different yet just as vital to an attack. Even in England
teams featuring the likes of Snow, Willis or Ward, it was left-armer Derek
Underwood who earned the nickname ‘Deadly’. If the Seventies and Eighties had
been dominated by sneering, snarling fast bowlers, the subsequent decades were
marked by the emergence of world-class spinners.
In any other era, India’s Anil Kumble would have been a
global icon. And yet it was the record-breaking rivalry between Muttiah
Muralitharan and Shane Warne which stole the show. Murali went on to set the
amazing mark of 800 Test wickets and he was a magician of such sleight of hand
that I could watch him for hours and never work out how he bowled at all, let
alone pick his doosra. In contrast, Warne was a straightforward ‘leggie’ who
burst onto the Test scene when leg-spinners were as rare as British Wimbledon
singles champions. I was to have a love-hate relationship with the Aussie. I
couldn’t embrace his bleach-blonde, beer-guzzling surfer-dude personality but
there was something endearing about that three-pace amble and roll of the
wrists. Whilst an astute captain at Hampshire, Shane Warne never got to lead Australia
in their absolute pomp but he was undoubtedly one of the best bowlers of my
lifetime. In particular, anyone who can make Mike Gatting so hilariously
bamboozled as he so memorably did in 1993 has to be an all-time
favourite.
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