The fastest bowling attack in the world Print E-mail
Category: Features
Written by Luke Tagg   
Thursday, 01 July 2010 23:38
I initially compiled this article yesterday and was about to save it when an earth leak tripped the power. I lost everything. I couldn't face rewriting it and in a rage stormed off to watch a rerun of Gran Torino.

Clint Eastwood is the Sulieman Benn of cinema. Grumpy as all hell. Just wants okes to piss off and leave him alone. Y'know?

Anyways - this article would have been 24 hours more relevant had I not lost it yesterday, but the theme remains as contemporary as the moment it occurred to me.

Australia. How fast was that attack in the fourth ODI against England at Old Trafford? That's not a rhetorical question and I'll answer it: the fastest (based on aggregate speed) bowling attack I've ever seen in an ODI.

One of my endearing childhood memories is a series of commercials for local brew Hansa Pilsener, in which some poor unfortunate would pad up to a rampant Sylvester Clarke, knees knocking with fright, and croak out the punchline: "I'd rather be opening a Hansa", before his dying screams were mercifully edited out.

Growing up in apartheid-damned South Africa I wasn't privileged to watch the great West Indian fast bowling units of the seventies and eighties and I also missed the careers of Thompson and Lillee. Guys like Harold Larwood were a bit before my time.

I can't comment on how fast those bowlers actually were, although there's plenty of anecdotal evidence.

All I know is that since modern speed guns became commonplace I have never witnessed a pace attack like Australia's the other day, with raw speed the only factor.

Shaun Tait regularly hit 97mp/h (156km/h) and never once dipped beneath the magical 90mp/h mark, which is the speed you need to hit to be considered a genuinely express paceman.

Dougie Bollinger and Ryan Harris also breached the 90mp/h mark on several occasions, meaning three bowlers were able to send them down at that speed.

I can't think of another ODI attack with such pace. South Africa is the only country to come close, with Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel - nobody else has more than one genuine quick.

I'm all grown up now and am well aware that pace isn't everything. Tait is quicker than Steyn, for example, but I know which bowler I'd prefer to spearhead my attack in any version of the game.

As England found out, however, a hostile battery of genuine quicks is no easy matter to handle, especially when backed up with good aggression. The great West Indian sides weren't exactly known for their proliferation of slow left-arm chinamen, if you catch my drift.

I love a good pace attack, especially one as quick as that. Australia suddenly appear to have a dearth of 90mp/h club members including Tait, Harris, Bollinger, Brett Lee, Dirk Nannes, Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and (almost) Josh Hazlewood.

What I would give to see an all-pace attack featuring five of those guys on a sunny day at the WACA, or the Wanderers. Just for the hell of it. Sod the spinners.
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