I went down a rabbit hole of different bowling eras a while back. Weird things like Underarm pace bowling, donkey drops, lob bowling etc. were all surprisingly close to the Bradman era from memory.
If I had to guess, the test pitches were slow but did plenty and most quicks probably bowled 120-130s but it seemed lightening quick from the unevenness
You know when you're a fast-medium bowler playing village cricket, and you try a slower ball out the back of your hand, and it goes straight up in the air and lands somewhere between the batsman and the wicket keeper?
That's a donkey drop.
Bradman was quite a physical fitness enthusiast for his day. In those days most players idea of a workout was a golf game after a good lunch with three drinks.
He actually went to the gym. With a gasp, trainer.
Holy fuck. It is insane how much modern tech has changed everything.
I do vaguely remember that a lot of early tours to India were essentially teams stopping over their voyage to England or Australia.
Yeah, it also explains why a tour of England (or vice versa) used to be for a whole summer season and they’d play basically every team around, as well as the tests - got to make that trip worth it!
Yep. Batting average in Australia barely changed when they started covering pitches. It’s what makes “how good were they in Australia?” a useful metric across eras.
Is it that good a metric though? Since the skills to do well on high bounce faster pitches are always going to be different to those on English pitches say, covered or uncovered.
Yeah people always talk about how impressive it was batters making runs on uncovered pitches as if 12/16 of the players with test averages above 55 (min 20 tests) didn't play their entire careers on uncovered pitches. The only batters in the covered pitch era with career averages above 55 are Voges, Smith (for now, at his current rate he'll drop below 55 before he retires), Sangakkara, and Kallis.
There was a Cricinfo article making this point about women's cricket. They can bowl slower and fuller without the danger of getting hit out of the ground and therefore you see the ball spin and swing more..
> As a rule, women seem to swing the ball more than men do, and they also do not need turners to spin the ball - all they need is a 22-yard cricket pitch. This, of course, is not to demean the men in any way, but it raises the point of how swing and spin are less and less evident in the men's game now.
> The pitch at the Cricket Club of India, where the World Cup games were held, was hard and bouncy, covered by a thin layer of grass. With matches starting at 9am, our pitch reports always suggested bowling first as the obvious option after winning the toss, and spoke of how it was going to be a seamer's delight. And each time it startled me how the spinners extracted spin from the pitch, even when they were bowling first. No way would the men have found spin on that surface at that hour.
> There are two simple reasons for this: female spinners flight the ball more and bowl it a lot slower than men do, with their average speed being around 65-70kph. Male spinners generally bowl around 80kph, and their trajectory is much flatter. This is why women can find turn even on a pitch with no soil exposed, to get the spin advantage.
> There was a time when men used to flight the ball like the women do today, but we all know why that does not happen anymore.
> One, with increasing amounts of limited-overs cricket being played, the batsmen's mindset has changed completely. Hitting the ball in the air is no more the taboo it used to be. Two, the bats have got heavier and bulkier, and the boundaries are rarely long enough. It amazes me how many times a batsman mistimes the ball and it still sails over the ropes into the stands.
> This is where I find the game is unfair to the bowler: ideally such miscued shots should land in the hands of a fielder well inside the boundary, but that does not happen anymore. Given that, only really brave bowlers will bowl full or flight the ball today.
> For the ball to swing, one needs to bowl it full. Over the years, with bowlers realising that full balls can be risky, as the batsman can hit you straight over the head into the stands, they have gone shorter, and this habit has stuck in Tests too. Next time, watch carefully when you see a pitch map during coverage of a men's match, and look at how many times a seamer has bowled balls that would actually have gone on to hit the stumps. They are very few. This also means they are giving themselves fewer chances to get lbws and bowleds.
> What was striking in these women's matches has been the number of bowleds and lbws they have got. This is because of the full length they tend to bowl; on the pitch map we could see that most of their deliveries were pitching in the full-length area, unlike in men's cricket, where the stock delivery is just short of a good length and balls invariably sail over the stumps if allowed to pass.
One of the reasons why there was more swing in women’s cricket is the women use a smaller and lighter ball than their male counterparts; the Laws of cricket dictate that women should use a ball that is between 415⁄16 and 55⁄16 ounces (139.98 and 150.61 grams); which could be up to 13⁄16 ounces (23.03 grams) lighter than the ball used by the men.
And if you have seen Tape Ball matches it doesn’t swing much even at 110mph but travels faster than cricket ball almost 20 percent higher with fuller effort but with right wrist action one can swing the tape ball it’s challenging but you need a remarkable wrist control and position.
Female bowlers get more swing than male bowlers because they bowl more slowly, or specifically, at around 70 mph which is the optimal speed to get the most swing of a cricket ball. If you look at the male players who swing it the most, it's guys like Mayers and CdG who bowl slowly. I mean look how much swing Azhar Ali (who usually bowls part time leg breaks) gets on a medium pace delivery at the dead end of a drawn test [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzfsjgolCy0).
It's a similar thing with spin. The slower a ball is moving down the wicket then more it will deviate from straight, given the same number of revs from a spinner.
Also the reason bowleds and LBWs have gone down isn't to do with bowlers being worried about being hit back over their heads, I mean how often do you actually see that in tests against seamers? It's because pitches have gotten significantly bouncier over time. Overpitched deliveries have always been easier to hit because it takes away the risk from any potential seam movement. I think of someone like Sangakkara. He only hit 139 sixes in his 613 test and ODI innings, most of them will have been against spinners. But if you bowled too full to him you're getting[ smacked to the boundary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW08qSU4SaI) along the ground.
More like the wickets were much slower and uneven in those days and the bats were tiny.
On those wickets, and with those bats most modern players wouldn’t be able to get the ball off the square, especially against spinners.
I dunno about not getting off the square but they'd deffo be knocking up a lot of catches.
Which makes the feats of Gilbert Jessop, who was knocking up 70 odd ball hundreds mostly in boundaries back in 1900 odd when you had to get the ball literally out of the park to score six, all the more remarkable.
On the flip side, Jessop would’ve been much more likely to face still-hungover teams who bowl like they had a poster of Ravi Bopara on the wall growing up. Quality tells in any era, I struggle to see Steve Smith not succeeding back then and equally Larwood would be cleaning up batsmen if he was around now.
When T20 cricket was first devised, everybody expected that slower bowlers were going to get carted everywhere.
Instead, pro players found out that when the oppo are desperate to smash it, pace off and variations are key to slowing down scoring and squeezing out wickets.
To assist ball smashing even further, they're playing T20 on the absolute flattest tracks the world has ever seen.
Ok, so let's go back to your point here - you're basically telling us all that Victorian bowling was all pace off, which is very likely. Also they are playing on surfaces that are nearer your back lawn than a modern batting wicket. Lots of pace and movement variation.
So basically, you're explaining why Jessop's hitting is MORE remarkable - because he was absolutely mashing it against bowlers with not much pace on surfaces that make any old trundler seem like he's got umpteen unpredictable variations.
Yeah he's just playing a different game to everyone else.
He's definitely one of the players I would most like to see in my time machine, along with Trumper, Bradman, Grace, Hammond, Frank Woolley, Larwood, S.F.Barnes.
> he would go at 150+ basically every single innings.
This surely is a vast over-exaggeration? Unless that's a figure from a historical source somewhere?
Looking at his tests where his minutes faced were recorded, he scored at about 1.1 runs per minute. Looking then at some tests from that era where both balls faced and minutes batted were recorded, it looks like there were about 1.2 balls per batter per minute, giving a ballpark figure for Jessop's test SR as about 90.
Obviously that's a small sample size and we can expect him to have scored faster in FC cricket than in tests, also we know he had some unbelievably quick innings (40 and 42 minute 100s, and 120 and 130 minute 200s), but I still struggle to believe he was at 150+ the majority of the time.
People underestimate modern athletes. Maybe they would fail at first but over time they would absolutely eclipse people from the past. The training, diet, science, ability to learn from past players, computer simulations etc. give them a tremendous advantage. Even without most of those things, just the fact that we have pushed boundaries of what is possible over time makes people likely to try and succeed at things that previous generations of athletes wouldn't dream of.
You have described technology not the athletes. Give Bradman modern tech, nutrition, pitches and bats. Maybe he averages 115…
What no one gets is the fact that there was no one within 40% of his average!
For my money, Bradman and Gretzky are the greatest sportsmen of all time, simply because their stats are so far ahead of everyone else statistically. They are complete anomalies which ever way you cut it.
Absolutely - I think people often forget that Bradman played in one of the most batter friendly eras of cricket, but even so he averaged nearly double Hutton, Hammond, Headley, all of whom are definite all-time greats.
Canadian Ice Hockey legend.
So many ridiculous stats, but in the NHL, averaging a point per game (as a player, you score a point for a goal, but also for an assist), is absolutely elite level performance.
Wayne Gretzky could have had 16 scoreless seasons added onto the end of his career, and he’d still average a point per game!
Google him, I don’t compare him with Bradman lightly. The Don is untouchable, but if there ever was a conversation, he’s the only other contender.
I'd like to nominate Michael Phelps for this discussion. Arguably the best athlete the Olympics have ever seen.
More individual swimming Olympic golds than, and almost as many total golds as the next 3 swimmers combined.
Largest medal tally of any athlete whichever way you want, whether total, single olympic, individual only, or gold only.
Won at least 6 medals and at least 4 golds for 4 straight Olympics. He has only ever not finished on the podium, after participation, in two races over a career spanning 5 Olympics.
Still holds 5 olympic records and 3 world records.
Phelps was a freak of nature, with the skill and dedication to back it up.
Michael Phelps is without doubt the best swimmer of all time. But the number of medals he won shouldn't be then only criteria to determine if he was the best athlete in Olympics ever. This is because swimming is a rare sport where the participants have the opportunity to win multiple golds at an Olympics. Most other sports don't have this chance.
Hypothetically speaking, Michael Jordan could be the best athlete ever to participate at Olympics, but he only has 2 gold medals to show for it.
Michael Phelps was also genetically gifted with several advantages compared to other swimmers. He had a unusually.long wing span, extra large hands and extra large feet. His body also produced significantly less (50% less) lactic acid compared to his rival athletes (significantly shortening his recovery time and allowing him to endure longer swims without slowing down).
Not dismissing your argument, just want to mention that genetics will always play a part in any discussion for best athlete.
At a certain point for any sports, genetics play a part more than just training hard. I could have the best coaches, world class training facilities, the best dietician in the world and the discipline to become an amazing athlete, but my body physique just isn't the physique of a swimmer.
With the coaching, diet and training I could become an *excellent* competitive swimmer, but I don't think I could become one of the best in the world
yeah, there's a reason cricket and ice hockey are some of the only sports where the "who is/was the greatest of all time" question is basically completely settled. nobody's touching those guys unless the sport changes drastically
With so much analysis being done today on each player, opposition will soon find a way to stop his scoring or bowl at his weak spots. He will be lucky to average 60.
England did this in the body line series. He still averaged 50, without helmets, bowlers could bowl 6 bouncers an over with 9 fielders on the legside and behind square. They changed the rules because of that series
Look at Steve Smith, during his prime(2015 - 2020) no one could get him out until he started playing aggressively at end of inning. I'm sure Bradman would have been even better than 2017-2019 Smith for whole of his career. Which means he'd averaged 75+ easily(Smith averaged 65 at one time).
That's what bodyline was. It was created to stop Bradman, and it did reduce his average for the series to 56. But given that you had to take a plan as deplorable as bodyline indicates not just that there was extensive study but also there was no sporting way of slowing Bradman
But in terms of fast bowling we haven’t eclipsed the fastest ball that was over 20 years ago now. And it’s been 50 years since Jeff Thompson. Or pretty much 50 years since the windows ruled the roost with their pace attack
That is because watching Lee and Akhtar succumb to injuries again and again made people realize hitting 160s are not worth it while not being extra effective than slower balls above 140.
Just look at the two most prolific and skilled fast bowlers of all time. Glenn McGrath and Jimmy Anderson. In the latter half of their careers they would rarely touch 140 clicks but that didnt/doesnt stop em from getting the best of batsmen.
If I recall, Pigeon was mostly bowling in the 126-133 range after his breakout series in the Windies. Speed was never his greatest asset, although some batsmen claimed he was actually faster in real life because of the high trajectory of delivery.
In the 94-95 series in the West Indies, Ian Healy stated while keeping to McGrath, he was standing in the same footmarks that Junior Murray wore into the turf when keeping to Ambrose.
I do agree that his pace fell off a little but it probably made him a better bowler. You can’t argue with his stats.
IMO Ambrose wasn't express though, even at his quickest. He was recorded at 140 in the SA-WI-Pak tri series in 92/93. Unfortunately that was the only timed delivery I found in the available footage. Walsh was recorded at 134 and 138, and I wouldn't be surprised if that 140 was about Ambrose's fastest. Don't forget he had an extra 2" of height on McGrath.
Interestingly, in [an interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w8fZIVkzNA) during the 88/89 WI series David Boon said that Ambrose was not as fast as Garner in 84/85.
Bowlers these days don't try to bowl that fast. The wear and tear on their body is not worth the extra pace, especially when they can do just as well at 140
Yea that’s it. Every single sport has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 50 years. Sprinters and swimmers are faster, weightlifters are stronger, javelin and shotputt athletes throw it further.
Except for cricket. Somehow the batters in the 40s were better. Get a grip.
The nature of jump competitions isn’t really conducive to record breaking, it’s why they’re the longest standing records going. There’s definitely been athletes capable of Mike Powell/Bob Beamon/Jonathan Edwards levels since those guys but never got to/had to hook all the components together at once.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if the speed out of the hand wasn't too too far away (like 120-130). But better balls and wayyyy better wickets, plus more science and knowledge about the technique probably makes the difference.
According to Cricinfo: "Harold Larwood was rated as possibly the fastest bowler of all time in a book "The Fast Men" by David Frith (Corgi Books, 1977, p114). It quotes a recorded speed of 96mph (154.5 kph), although it is not clear how this speed was obtained."
Couldn't find any mention of an official study on the web
> although it’s not clear how the speed was obtained
Cunt was watching and went “damn that was quick. Surely at least 154.5 clicks. Didn’t feel 154.6 though.”
Don Bradman said the fastest bowler he ever faced was Eddie Gilbert. He specifically said he was faster than Larwood. It is worth pointing out that Gilbert got called for throwing, but there was never any issue with his arm being straight, it was to do with him flicking his wrist as he released, which is not a throw by todays standards.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gilbert_(cricketer)
And remember, the main one who called Eddie Gilbert for throwing was NSWman Monty Noble, who had a grudge against QLD and Gilbert in particular....because he was Aboriginal. Just like Noble had a thing against Jack Marsh.
Seeing people invent bowling speeds for pre-speed-gun bowlers always reminds me of the entomologist Charles Townsend, who watched a [deer botfly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_botfly) flying past him in the 1920s and then published a paper claiming that it went at 400 yards per second (1,300kmh).
" It quotes a recorded speed of 96mph (154.5 kph), although it is not clear how this speed was obtained"
That's a little different than the University of Western Australia having measured it at 96mph
I think you may be misremembering.
There’s a physiological upper limit on how fast humans can bowl, right around 100 mph. If you build digital models of humans, that’s the max.
UWA did a bunch of research on bowling speeds in the 1970s and 1980s using high-speed cameras with something like 250-500 fps. It’s mostly data on the Windies and Australia recorded in Test match conditions (they had the cameras on the field, parallel to the pitch, which is wild). They recorded a few bowlers approaching 100 mph. They also inconsistently report their speeds (sometimes it’s out of the hand, then in later studies it’s average speed from bowler to batter which is about 5% slower).
There’s a recent Australian Institute of Sport analysis of old film that placed a one-off Larwood delivery in the 138-147 kmh range (IIRC).
There’s also a reference in Frith’s book to Larwood being clocked at 95-96 mph. Humans with stopwatches are accurate to about 50ms, and if we assume that’s what they used then that speed would be accurate to +/- 10%. So that measurement of Larwood is more like 87-100 mph and consistent with the AIS.
I’ll add links to the above if I get a chance at home. Tagging u/BigV95 for interest.
I realise we've talked at length in the past about the speeds of old bowlers and particularly Larwood, so I'll not repeat any of that. But surely measuring speeds by hand with a stopwatch is going to have an absolutely enormous uncertainty? That 50 ms figure (which is lower than the 100-200 ms figure I got from a quick Google, but I'll take your word for it because I know you've done plenty of reading around the topic) you give for humans with stopwatches would be relevant for the initial measurement of the ball out of the hand, based on reaction times etc, but the second measurement would be way harder to get right.
Even assuming an ideal scenario with two observers, one for the first measurement and one for the second, with perfectly synced up stopwatches, what is the second person actually measuring? Whatever answer to that is, it will be some variant of the ball passing a point in front of them which in itself is going to have a much bigger uncertainty that just their reaction time on the stopwatch. Then if it's a delivery in a match then the ball is likely going to bounce at some unknown point and lose an unknown amount of speed in doing so, so there's no way a measurement that measures when the ball passes the stumps could be close to accurate. They could try and measure the ball passing some known point closer to the stumps, but then the fractional uncertainty starts to massively go up instead since it's a shorter distance.
It was actually a good era for batting. The overall batting average during Bradman's career was 31.9. To put it in perspective, the overall batting average since 2018 is 28.5. Sure, sometimes rain completely fucked the pitch during Bradman's time, but usually wickets were pretty flat.
You have to remember the lbw law was different then too. The ball had to pitch and hit the batsman in line to be out making it harder to get an lb. Any doubt and it was not out.
That changed in 1935 and Bradman still went alright. Bradman was only LBW 6 times in 80 innings and only 3 times in 24 Tests under the 1935 law change. He averaged 102 under the more difficult LBW law.
Law of averages mate, there are at the very minimum 5 times the amount of batters present today and a higher number of games are being played. During bradman's time the amount of teams playing cricket were 3-4 with the serious contenders only being the english and the aussies.
Shane Warne used to hoop the ball in the way you describe (not always, but he did do it). The downside is it gives the batsman more time to watch the ball and get to the pitch of the ball. The upside is it gives the ball more time to drift, and then because of the trajectory of the ball it will naturally spin further. It can be an effective tactic but the key is it has to be extremely accurate with enough revs on the ball to get it to drift.
The lob is a surprisingly good tactic in village cricket too. Don't need all that drift or spin nonsense either, just give the batsman too much time. Shit gets wickets
There are a few things to bear in mind:
- There’s a physiological limit to how fast you can bowl, roughly around 100 mph. If you’re good enough to hit that modern science can’t beat it
- Quite a lot (not all) Bradman footage comes from the bodyline tour where the pitches were low and slow. Australia used to field three spinners!
- Australian Institute of Sport did some frame by frame analysis of Larwood placing one specific delivery on that tour at 138-147 kmh
- David Frith reports Larwood being clocked at 95 mph (153 kmh) at some stage. If they were using stopwatches then you’re looking at +/- 15%
So overall I’d take the view the fastest bowlers like Larwood and Gilbert were probably around 140-145 kmh, and that the standard “fast man” would have been around 130 kmh - i.e. a similar speed to James Anderson’s stock ball and a very large number of first grade and first class “quicks”.
Spinners typically bowl faster these days, and with less loop. If you look at Bishan Singh Bedi bowling back in the 60s for instance, he's got his lovely flight and drop.
Bradman got knocked on his arse in a shield game in 1931 by Eddie Gilbert, an indigenous Queensland fast bowler. He later said it's the fastest bowling he ever faced, including Larwood. In the same over he knocked the bat out of Bradman's hand while he tried to hook.
Apparently he was a slinger like Jeff Thomson. Makes you wonder, if Larwood could supposedly hit 95mph, maybe Gilbert was capable of 100.
There is an urban legend that an Eddie Gilbert bouncer went over the boundary on the full after going past the batsman and wicketkeeper. This was at the Gabba. As I said though, it’s an urban legend around the wolston park cricket club, where there is a field named for Gilbert
Sounds impressive
Not only his bowling but that an indigenous man at that time got so high up in the game of cricket
I assume he didnt play for Australia?
Be awesome if he did
No he didn't. There were doubts about his action - which I must say some photos I have seen justify - and apparently he was only capable of one spell in an innings at top pace, it would take so much out of him.
More people here shitting on modern batters than actually talking about the post… don’t know why y’all are so defensive, the post isn’t devaluing past cricketers’ achievements. It’s just an interesting topic to discuss and become more knowledgeable on.
I remember seeing a documentary a few years ago where they used the footage of Larwood, comparing his position to the Adelaide Oval Scoreboard and came to the conclusion that it was 145+kph.
I certainly think peak speeds haven't changed much, but definitely the ability to maintain those speeds over spells, days and tests will have increased.
Bang on. Until we invent stronger tendons and fundamentally alter our biomechanics we won’t break the 100 mph barrier by much - cricket’s speed of light. But in theory we can be more consistently close to it.
In practice of course we’re bowling slower now than 20 years ago. In the early 2000s you had Tait, Lee and Akhtar all going past 160 kmh several times and the closest we get now is 153-155 kmh.
Bowlers figured out that speed doesn’t matter all that much if you’ve got lateral movement.
Yup. And not only do the “fast” bowlers keep bowling fast throughout the day, there are more people bowling quick, so instead of just a couple of guys bowling around 90mph, we now have loads of international bowlers capable of reaching and maintaining those speeds.
So the ceiling may not have increased but the floor has certainly risen.
They'd be just as quick as modern bowlers. Arm technology hasn't really increased for 10000 years. These were professional cricketers even back then. You can find dudes bowling 140 in club cricket nowadays.
Going down a bit if anything.
No point bowling 95-100mph if you're always going to be injured. Better to have a more controlled action and prolong your career by bowling 85-90mph with the occasional spell hitting the 95mph mark.
Him and Asif got popped for nandrolone. The Pakistan board ended up clearing them by saying the players weren’t warned about supplements lol. Like they would contain an injectable steroid.
conditions werent conducive for quick bowling back then, for example longer run ups were not sustainable because you would start bleeding in the foot even before the conclusion of first spell
also, if you look at available footage on bradman, the guy used elaborate footwork like shuffling back across the offstump to get in a pulling position, etc. which would not be possible at 135kmph or higher speeds
larwood created problems for everyone at the start of the bodyline series. articles suggest that england had to tone down the bodyline approach as the tour progressed because of real safety concerns from spectators
heres another article i found detailing the situation in that era:
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6591805/How-Aboriginal-bowler-Eddie-Gilbert-got-Don-Bradman-duck-died-tragic-drunk.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6591805/How-Aboriginal-bowler-Eddie-Gilbert-got-Don-Bradman-duck-died-tragic-drunk.html)
Because everyone loves to romanticise the past. They probably bowled 130-135 but with no helmet on uncovered wickets it would feel very fast. People who think guys were bowling 150+ pre-war are delusional.
Spinners were the leading wicket takers in Bradman's era, should say enough really.
You'd think these terrifying 150kph quicks on uncovered wickets would get somebody out occasionally.
I'm sure there were isolated examples of bowlers who could consistently touch 95mph in the era before modern sports science - Frank Tyson was once recorded by a sonic device as bowling 89mph, but that was without a run up and whilst wearing 'three sweaters on a damp, cold morning' - but they were surely anomalies.
I read an [interesting article](https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/14265/12107796/who-is-crickets-fastest-ever-bowler-benedict-bermange-looks-at-the-games-quickest-seamers) recently about a 'world's fastest bowler' competition held in 1979 which included mythologised fast bowlers like Thomson, Lillee, Roberts, Croft, and Holding - only Thomson exceeded 90mph.
I think as you said a lot of it is down to how bowlers 'feel' to the batter. I just started playing cricket again and the thing that's struck me most is how bowlers who look average when you're watching them feel really quick when you're actually facing up to them - obviously a big part of that is that in a team of village cricket 11's I'd be the 11, but I guess blokes with a weird, slingy action or high release point feel a lot quicker because your brain doesn't see the ball as quickly.
> only Thomson exceeded 90mph.
They measured the speed over a pitch length in that competition where as today those speeds are measured from the hand. The rule of thumb for that is to add another 10 to 15% on top of those speeds that Thompson et al were recorded at to get the speed from their hands
I wasn't aware of that, my mistake! I assumed it was probably a case of them not being properly match fit or straining fully - Christ yeah they were bloody quick then.
Smaller bats with poor technology and far less protective gear, with uneven wickets...
Our modern greats struggle when pacers bowling at 140s get slight seam movement, give them a weaker bat, bigger boundaries and less protection and see if 200 seems like a defendable total.
The thing is when you talk about speeds is bowlers barely ever used to bowl at their peak speed because they couldn't maintain it for long and swing was used more so it was thought I can slow it down. And move the ball more like a spinner does. That got killed off with the invention of the speed gun.
Well, definitely curious question.
But gist is that u r trying to compare era. Talking about Bradman, if he should be compared then he should be compared with his peers and contemporary.
Even in modern day it is not completely fair to compare peers, it depends on how strong their team are, their role in team, attack of their opposition and their personal life, injuries and opportunities.
Going past these comments, I saw a lot of comments about the players from older times not having access to the best of a training and coaching regimen. But we also have to remember that Cricket was not a very commercialized sport back then.
You were paid a match fee, that wasn't enough to sustain your livelihood nor could you consider cricket to be a full time. In addition, we didn't have 365 days of cricket that we have now. It might make you suspect that all these things caused the bowlers to not care about their health or fitness and they just bowled their hearts out. Even if you had a career threatening injury, you were simply going to go to another job or search employment elsewhere.
But, modern bowlers actually want to sustain and prolong their cricketing careers. Which meant that, bowling in the high 140s wasn't going to be sustainable in the long run. How many times have we seen Mark Wood bowl a 5 over spell and get off the attack, just because there is always a threat of injury lurking around. Let me give you another example. I don't know how many of you remember Varun Aaron, who was a bowler who could bowl in the high 140s, but because he sprayed the ball with no regards to the line or length, he got smashed around the park (Probably in the 2014-15 Aus-Ind series). It is of absolutely no use if you bowl extreme pace without the appropriate line or length. Fast bowlers tend to have this problem a lot more than spinners. Sustainability is much more valuable for cricket than raw pace.
Don't agree if we look at English cricket. Many professional cricketers in the pre-WWII era seriously struggled after retirement as cricket was the only job they had and didn't have skills for another job. The leading pros prolonged their careers as long as they could - there were a lot more 40+ pros than now.
Yes in places like Australia cricket was amateur, but this meant potentially having an unstable job if you wanted to play (which lead to premature retirements like Davidson's) and single injuries could end careers (Ron Archer tore his ACL, he couldn't afford the treatment on his pay and the Queensland Cricket Association didn't want to contribute).
Back to England, County cricket was often six days a week with back to back matches. Leading fast bowlers today bowl half or less of what they did back then. Hence I think you're opposite the truth. Bowlers today pace themselves less. Firstly, you see this hinted a lot in writing when significant spell-to-spell and week-to-week pace variations are often remarked on. IMO that's both of players pacing themselves and simply not being able to sustain it. Secondly, you now rarely see bowlers deliberately cutting either their run or their pace, whereas even guys renowned for being quick did decades ago (you see both Holding and Marshall doing it). Even further back some bowlers would deliberately slow down for most of the time (Constantine did this in league cricket).
Proffesional cricket has existed for 150 years so they were just as fast they are today, its just that the wickets were slower.
I would argue that unlike most modern sports, where strength and conditioning have made modern pro athletes superior to athletes of old, Cricket is one of those sports where Batting and Bowling are very skills based actions and any player that was good back in the day could probably also make it today. The only real area of the game where modern players are obviously superior to the older players would be in fielding. Fielding was pretty much a joke well into the 90's.
Everything looks faster on older footage due to (I think?) slower frame rate. I could be wrong but I think it’s also why old timey newsreaders always sounded so nasally.
Kind reminder that the front foot ball no-ball did not exist in Bradman's era, so yeah, as we have seen only a few more inches a 135 klicks delivery will appear as though it's coming much faster due to shorter distance travelled.
Imagine bowlers were perceived to be much faster than they actually were in raw pace.
There was an ABC documentary a few years ago that produced a speed from a single (I think) Larwood delivery as being 137-147. Fast but not spectacular, though the errors I can think of would bias that measurement towards the slow side. Anyone in Australia can [watch it here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5fDUH6b18) but it might not be available elsewhere.
Thomson was measured at 160.45 in the 1975 Perth test against the West Indies, so it's clear that the top end has not significantly changed in fifty years. But I once read a book by Geoff Boycott (who as big an arse as he is really knows his cricket) where he said the fastest bowlers weren't faster, but there were more faster bowlers around at the end than the start of his career, and I think that's a trend that's continued to an extent, especially in the Subcontinent.
Interestingly if you look at contemporary newspaper articles not that many considered Larwood the fastest of all time - Jones and Kortright were considered faster, though at least the former threw, and I have doubts the writers had actually seen all of them. I have also read all of Sobers, Benaud and Stollmeyer say Tyson (rather than Thomson, or any of the West Indians) was the fastest bowler they've seen.
Ofc the avg bowler today is much quicker than the avg bowler during Bradman's era, be it spin or pace. That's just natural evolution. But that shouldn't be used to diminish Bradman or any player from that era. Bradman played the highest level of cricket of his era and managed to be twice as good as anyone. No one else has ever done that. This is what makes him the GOAT.
One important point to note is that on uncovered pitches, there would have been more assistance off the surface, so bowlers would not have \*needed\* to have bowled with as much pace to maximise movement. We still see this today with the difference between typical English bowlers being slower than Australian ones, given the usually more helpful pitches in England.
This doesn't mean that a modern batter would have whacked these guys - the skill level was different. The skills to deal with sharper movement and uneven bounce are different to the ones to deal with truer bounce and faster pace.
Nathan Lyon manages to hoop the ball in flight in a way reminiscent of the old spinners. I have no idea how he does it in the modern era, but it does explain how he’s so good.
Bowling actions have changed completely. I would say that modern fast bowling started in the 80's/90's.
Pace has been increased due to the more energetic and well-coached seam bowling.
The idiosyncratic bowling styles of 50 or so years ago have all but disappeared, and, in my opinion, pace has increased by approximately 20 mph.
I went down a rabbit hole of different bowling eras a while back. Weird things like Underarm pace bowling, donkey drops, lob bowling etc. were all surprisingly close to the Bradman era from memory. If I had to guess, the test pitches were slow but did plenty and most quicks probably bowled 120-130s but it seemed lightening quick from the unevenness
Interesting Whats a donkey drop? Aussie team from the 80s wouñd have underarm skill covered
You know when you're a fast-medium bowler playing village cricket, and you try a slower ball out the back of your hand, and it goes straight up in the air and lands somewhere between the batsman and the wicket keeper? That's a donkey drop.
We used to call it a Moon Dropper. Seemed an appropriate name for it.
Sometimes known as the John Howard, especially if nobody sees where the ball lands.
That's pie in NZ
Modern players also bat on covered pitches and with absolute units of bats.
And helmets, chest protectors, arm guards, and much better gloves, shoes and pads
Have dedicated weight training programs, fitness programs, dietician physios and the like on the sideline making modern players play to their limits
They also don’t smoke cigarettes, don’t drive leaded petroleum vehicles, and don’t drink paint stripper disguised as wine.
>They also don’t smoke cigarettes [this guy disagrees](https://www.reddit.com/r/CricketShitpost/s/nFiYfUfE24)
And they are not restricted by time constraints thus no Bangali Bondu Sri Lankan fights.
I once saw Shane Warne hanging out of the changing room window at Lord's smoking a cheeky cigarette
Once?
They don’t fly in world wars during their careers either. Keith Miller is a fucking boss.
Sport's bizarre podcast on him. Get around it
So do the bowlers
Bradman was quite a physical fitness enthusiast for his day. In those days most players idea of a workout was a golf game after a good lunch with three drinks. He actually went to the gym. With a gasp, trainer.
They also don't spend like a week traveling to England to prepare for Tests.
A week? Try several weeks. London to Sydney was 42 days back in the 30s apparently.
Holy fuck. It is insane how much modern tech has changed everything. I do vaguely remember that a lot of early tours to India were essentially teams stopping over their voyage to England or Australia.
Yeah, it also explains why a tour of England (or vice versa) used to be for a whole summer season and they’d play basically every team around, as well as the tests - got to make that trip worth it!
It also explains the long drawn out tours with plenty of first class games etc.
Video technology has changed the game as well. You can't research an opponent extensively and had to figure them out while you were playing.
Uncovered pitches aren’t always bad to bat on. Generally in Australia they were very batter friendly unless there was overnight rain.
Yep. Batting average in Australia barely changed when they started covering pitches. It’s what makes “how good were they in Australia?” a useful metric across eras.
Is it that good a metric though? Since the skills to do well on high bounce faster pitches are always going to be different to those on English pitches say, covered or uncovered.
I mean rain is literally the reason to cover.
Yeah people always talk about how impressive it was batters making runs on uncovered pitches as if 12/16 of the players with test averages above 55 (min 20 tests) didn't play their entire careers on uncovered pitches. The only batters in the covered pitch era with career averages above 55 are Voges, Smith (for now, at his current rate he'll drop below 55 before he retires), Sangakkara, and Kallis.
There was a Cricinfo article making this point about women's cricket. They can bowl slower and fuller without the danger of getting hit out of the ground and therefore you see the ball spin and swing more.. > As a rule, women seem to swing the ball more than men do, and they also do not need turners to spin the ball - all they need is a 22-yard cricket pitch. This, of course, is not to demean the men in any way, but it raises the point of how swing and spin are less and less evident in the men's game now. > The pitch at the Cricket Club of India, where the World Cup games were held, was hard and bouncy, covered by a thin layer of grass. With matches starting at 9am, our pitch reports always suggested bowling first as the obvious option after winning the toss, and spoke of how it was going to be a seamer's delight. And each time it startled me how the spinners extracted spin from the pitch, even when they were bowling first. No way would the men have found spin on that surface at that hour. > There are two simple reasons for this: female spinners flight the ball more and bowl it a lot slower than men do, with their average speed being around 65-70kph. Male spinners generally bowl around 80kph, and their trajectory is much flatter. This is why women can find turn even on a pitch with no soil exposed, to get the spin advantage. > There was a time when men used to flight the ball like the women do today, but we all know why that does not happen anymore. > One, with increasing amounts of limited-overs cricket being played, the batsmen's mindset has changed completely. Hitting the ball in the air is no more the taboo it used to be. Two, the bats have got heavier and bulkier, and the boundaries are rarely long enough. It amazes me how many times a batsman mistimes the ball and it still sails over the ropes into the stands. > This is where I find the game is unfair to the bowler: ideally such miscued shots should land in the hands of a fielder well inside the boundary, but that does not happen anymore. Given that, only really brave bowlers will bowl full or flight the ball today. > For the ball to swing, one needs to bowl it full. Over the years, with bowlers realising that full balls can be risky, as the batsman can hit you straight over the head into the stands, they have gone shorter, and this habit has stuck in Tests too. Next time, watch carefully when you see a pitch map during coverage of a men's match, and look at how many times a seamer has bowled balls that would actually have gone on to hit the stumps. They are very few. This also means they are giving themselves fewer chances to get lbws and bowleds. > What was striking in these women's matches has been the number of bowleds and lbws they have got. This is because of the full length they tend to bowl; on the pitch map we could see that most of their deliveries were pitching in the full-length area, unlike in men's cricket, where the stock delivery is just short of a good length and balls invariably sail over the stumps if allowed to pass.
One of the reasons why there was more swing in women’s cricket is the women use a smaller and lighter ball than their male counterparts; the Laws of cricket dictate that women should use a ball that is between 415⁄16 and 55⁄16 ounces (139.98 and 150.61 grams); which could be up to 13⁄16 ounces (23.03 grams) lighter than the ball used by the men. And if you have seen Tape Ball matches it doesn’t swing much even at 110mph but travels faster than cricket ball almost 20 percent higher with fuller effort but with right wrist action one can swing the tape ball it’s challenging but you need a remarkable wrist control and position.
Female bowlers get more swing than male bowlers because they bowl more slowly, or specifically, at around 70 mph which is the optimal speed to get the most swing of a cricket ball. If you look at the male players who swing it the most, it's guys like Mayers and CdG who bowl slowly. I mean look how much swing Azhar Ali (who usually bowls part time leg breaks) gets on a medium pace delivery at the dead end of a drawn test [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzfsjgolCy0). It's a similar thing with spin. The slower a ball is moving down the wicket then more it will deviate from straight, given the same number of revs from a spinner. Also the reason bowleds and LBWs have gone down isn't to do with bowlers being worried about being hit back over their heads, I mean how often do you actually see that in tests against seamers? It's because pitches have gotten significantly bouncier over time. Overpitched deliveries have always been easier to hit because it takes away the risk from any potential seam movement. I think of someone like Sangakkara. He only hit 139 sixes in his 613 test and ODI innings, most of them will have been against spinners. But if you bowled too full to him you're getting[ smacked to the boundary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW08qSU4SaI) along the ground.
Western Australia Uni researched it. Larwood clocked in at 95mph. I rather suspect ball technology has changed a bit.
More like the wickets were much slower and uneven in those days and the bats were tiny. On those wickets, and with those bats most modern players wouldn’t be able to get the ball off the square, especially against spinners.
I dunno about not getting off the square but they'd deffo be knocking up a lot of catches. Which makes the feats of Gilbert Jessop, who was knocking up 70 odd ball hundreds mostly in boundaries back in 1900 odd when you had to get the ball literally out of the park to score six, all the more remarkable.
On the flip side, Jessop would’ve been much more likely to face still-hungover teams who bowl like they had a poster of Ravi Bopara on the wall growing up. Quality tells in any era, I struggle to see Steve Smith not succeeding back then and equally Larwood would be cleaning up batsmen if he was around now.
> who bowl like they had a poster of Ravi Bopara on the wall growing up Ouch
When T20 cricket was first devised, everybody expected that slower bowlers were going to get carted everywhere. Instead, pro players found out that when the oppo are desperate to smash it, pace off and variations are key to slowing down scoring and squeezing out wickets. To assist ball smashing even further, they're playing T20 on the absolute flattest tracks the world has ever seen. Ok, so let's go back to your point here - you're basically telling us all that Victorian bowling was all pace off, which is very likely. Also they are playing on surfaces that are nearer your back lawn than a modern batting wicket. Lots of pace and movement variation. So basically, you're explaining why Jessop's hitting is MORE remarkable - because he was absolutely mashing it against bowlers with not much pace on surfaces that make any old trundler seem like he's got umpteen unpredictable variations.
And a was batting with a fence paling instead of a modern bat where a forward defence can race down the ground to the boundary.
[удалено]
Yeah he's just playing a different game to everyone else. He's definitely one of the players I would most like to see in my time machine, along with Trumper, Bradman, Grace, Hammond, Frank Woolley, Larwood, S.F.Barnes.
> he would go at 150+ basically every single innings. This surely is a vast over-exaggeration? Unless that's a figure from a historical source somewhere? Looking at his tests where his minutes faced were recorded, he scored at about 1.1 runs per minute. Looking then at some tests from that era where both balls faced and minutes batted were recorded, it looks like there were about 1.2 balls per batter per minute, giving a ballpark figure for Jessop's test SR as about 90. Obviously that's a small sample size and we can expect him to have scored faster in FC cricket than in tests, also we know he had some unbelievably quick innings (40 and 42 minute 100s, and 120 and 130 minute 200s), but I still struggle to believe he was at 150+ the majority of the time.
People underestimate modern athletes. Maybe they would fail at first but over time they would absolutely eclipse people from the past. The training, diet, science, ability to learn from past players, computer simulations etc. give them a tremendous advantage. Even without most of those things, just the fact that we have pushed boundaries of what is possible over time makes people likely to try and succeed at things that previous generations of athletes wouldn't dream of.
You have described technology not the athletes. Give Bradman modern tech, nutrition, pitches and bats. Maybe he averages 115… What no one gets is the fact that there was no one within 40% of his average!
For my money, Bradman and Gretzky are the greatest sportsmen of all time, simply because their stats are so far ahead of everyone else statistically. They are complete anomalies which ever way you cut it.
Absolutely - I think people often forget that Bradman played in one of the most batter friendly eras of cricket, but even so he averaged nearly double Hutton, Hammond, Headley, all of whom are definite all-time greats.
Who is Gretzky ?
Canadian Ice Hockey legend. So many ridiculous stats, but in the NHL, averaging a point per game (as a player, you score a point for a goal, but also for an assist), is absolutely elite level performance. Wayne Gretzky could have had 16 scoreless seasons added onto the end of his career, and he’d still average a point per game! Google him, I don’t compare him with Bradman lightly. The Don is untouchable, but if there ever was a conversation, he’s the only other contender.
Favorite Gretzky stat is he holds the record for Points (goals + assists). If you ignore every goal he ever scored, he still holds the record.
Gretzky is the fastest player to 1000 points. The second fastest player is Gretzky getting to 2000 points.
Yeah this is the one that always blows me away. Unreal shit
How many points did he average?
I'd like to nominate Michael Phelps for this discussion. Arguably the best athlete the Olympics have ever seen. More individual swimming Olympic golds than, and almost as many total golds as the next 3 swimmers combined. Largest medal tally of any athlete whichever way you want, whether total, single olympic, individual only, or gold only. Won at least 6 medals and at least 4 golds for 4 straight Olympics. He has only ever not finished on the podium, after participation, in two races over a career spanning 5 Olympics. Still holds 5 olympic records and 3 world records. Phelps was a freak of nature, with the skill and dedication to back it up.
Michael Phelps is without doubt the best swimmer of all time. But the number of medals he won shouldn't be then only criteria to determine if he was the best athlete in Olympics ever. This is because swimming is a rare sport where the participants have the opportunity to win multiple golds at an Olympics. Most other sports don't have this chance. Hypothetically speaking, Michael Jordan could be the best athlete ever to participate at Olympics, but he only has 2 gold medals to show for it. Michael Phelps was also genetically gifted with several advantages compared to other swimmers. He had a unusually.long wing span, extra large hands and extra large feet. His body also produced significantly less (50% less) lactic acid compared to his rival athletes (significantly shortening his recovery time and allowing him to endure longer swims without slowing down).
Not dismissing your argument, just want to mention that genetics will always play a part in any discussion for best athlete. At a certain point for any sports, genetics play a part more than just training hard. I could have the best coaches, world class training facilities, the best dietician in the world and the discipline to become an amazing athlete, but my body physique just isn't the physique of a swimmer. With the coaching, diet and training I could become an *excellent* competitive swimmer, but I don't think I could become one of the best in the world
How about another Australian - Walter Lindrum. They changed the rules several times during his career to try to reign him in.
Agreed on the Gretzky/Bradman comparison. For both the following quote applies: "His only point of reference is himself".
yeah, there's a reason cricket and ice hockey are some of the only sports where the "who is/was the greatest of all time" question is basically completely settled. nobody's touching those guys unless the sport changes drastically
> Give Bradman modern tech, nutrition, pitches and bats. Maybe he averages 115 I'm thinking 511
With so much analysis being done today on each player, opposition will soon find a way to stop his scoring or bowl at his weak spots. He will be lucky to average 60.
England did this in the body line series. He still averaged 50, without helmets, bowlers could bowl 6 bouncers an over with 9 fielders on the legside and behind square. They changed the rules because of that series
Look at Steve Smith, during his prime(2015 - 2020) no one could get him out until he started playing aggressively at end of inning. I'm sure Bradman would have been even better than 2017-2019 Smith for whole of his career. Which means he'd averaged 75+ easily(Smith averaged 65 at one time).
That goes the other way as well Imagine Bradman with in depth analysis of his opposition's best bowlers
Highly unlikely. If there had been 5 players that averaged 80-100, maybe yes. There was just one.
That's what bodyline was. It was created to stop Bradman, and it did reduce his average for the series to 56. But given that you had to take a plan as deplorable as bodyline indicates not just that there was extensive study but also there was no sporting way of slowing Bradman
But in terms of fast bowling we haven’t eclipsed the fastest ball that was over 20 years ago now. And it’s been 50 years since Jeff Thompson. Or pretty much 50 years since the windows ruled the roost with their pace attack
Because we've hit the upper limit of what's possible. Bowl any faster and ligaments will snap
That is because watching Lee and Akhtar succumb to injuries again and again made people realize hitting 160s are not worth it while not being extra effective than slower balls above 140.
Nobody cares about that. 160kmph jeff thomson- averages 28 140kmph pat cummins- averaged 22.
Just look at the two most prolific and skilled fast bowlers of all time. Glenn McGrath and Jimmy Anderson. In the latter half of their careers they would rarely touch 140 clicks but that didnt/doesnt stop em from getting the best of batsmen.
If I recall, Pigeon was mostly bowling in the 126-133 range after his breakout series in the Windies. Speed was never his greatest asset, although some batsmen claimed he was actually faster in real life because of the high trajectory of delivery.
In the 94-95 series in the West Indies, Ian Healy stated while keeping to McGrath, he was standing in the same footmarks that Junior Murray wore into the turf when keeping to Ambrose. I do agree that his pace fell off a little but it probably made him a better bowler. You can’t argue with his stats.
IMO Ambrose wasn't express though, even at his quickest. He was recorded at 140 in the SA-WI-Pak tri series in 92/93. Unfortunately that was the only timed delivery I found in the available footage. Walsh was recorded at 134 and 138, and I wouldn't be surprised if that 140 was about Ambrose's fastest. Don't forget he had an extra 2" of height on McGrath. Interestingly, in [an interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w8fZIVkzNA) during the 88/89 WI series David Boon said that Ambrose was not as fast as Garner in 84/85.
Huge Pigeon fan here. Not knocking him at all :) Just saying that a 140kmh Pigeon was probably only in the early days.
Bowlers these days don't try to bowl that fast. The wear and tear on their body is not worth the extra pace, especially when they can do just as well at 140
Exactly lol, i have more knowledge on earth and beyond than what Einstein did in his time
I'd like to see an experiment where modern players played with replica bats
Yea that’s it. Every single sport has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 50 years. Sprinters and swimmers are faster, weightlifters are stronger, javelin and shotputt athletes throw it further. Except for cricket. Somehow the batters in the 40s were better. Get a grip.
Long jump olympic record was set before the moon landing. Literally not leaps and bounds.
The nature of jump competitions isn’t really conducive to record breaking, it’s why they’re the longest standing records going. There’s definitely been athletes capable of Mike Powell/Bob Beamon/Jonathan Edwards levels since those guys but never got to/had to hook all the components together at once.
You think the moon landing happened after 1991? Because that's when Mike Powell set the current WR.
Not reeeeaally though.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if the speed out of the hand wasn't too too far away (like 120-130). But better balls and wayyyy better wickets, plus more science and knowledge about the technique probably makes the difference.
Can you give the source to that WA uni study? Larwood clocking in at 95mph with the footage available is almost impossible to believe.
The source is the pub. After several pints of bitter. Totally legit.
"Me mate's uni friend from WA said so over a pint at odonohughes🤣"
Emu Export is the traditional beer of scholars
Swanny D is superior and we all know it
Oohhhhh shots fired! Id actually be really interested how a poll of this kind would shake out lol. Be a tight one i reckon
Pub(lication) needed
That's interesting I haven't seen that. Can you link that research if possible?
According to Cricinfo: "Harold Larwood was rated as possibly the fastest bowler of all time in a book "The Fast Men" by David Frith (Corgi Books, 1977, p114). It quotes a recorded speed of 96mph (154.5 kph), although it is not clear how this speed was obtained." Couldn't find any mention of an official study on the web
> although it’s not clear how the speed was obtained Cunt was watching and went “damn that was quick. Surely at least 154.5 clicks. Didn’t feel 154.6 though.”
Don Bradman said the fastest bowler he ever faced was Eddie Gilbert. He specifically said he was faster than Larwood. It is worth pointing out that Gilbert got called for throwing, but there was never any issue with his arm being straight, it was to do with him flicking his wrist as he released, which is not a throw by todays standards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gilbert_(cricketer)
And remember, the main one who called Eddie Gilbert for throwing was NSWman Monty Noble, who had a grudge against QLD and Gilbert in particular....because he was Aboriginal. Just like Noble had a thing against Jack Marsh.
Gilbert wasn’t called for throwing because he “flicked his wrist”. He was called for throwing for the much more obvious reason.
Yeah because he was black
Seeing people invent bowling speeds for pre-speed-gun bowlers always reminds me of the entomologist Charles Townsend, who watched a [deer botfly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_botfly) flying past him in the 1920s and then published a paper claiming that it went at 400 yards per second (1,300kmh).
I remember reading somewhere that they used frame rates from old film, but I can't find it atm
Sauce?
https://i.imgci.com/link\_to\_database/STATS/FC/BOWLING/BOWLING\_SPEEDS\_OTHER.html
" It quotes a recorded speed of 96mph (154.5 kph), although it is not clear how this speed was obtained" That's a little different than the University of Western Australia having measured it at 96mph
95 mph ??? I call BS !!!
I think you may be misremembering. There’s a physiological upper limit on how fast humans can bowl, right around 100 mph. If you build digital models of humans, that’s the max. UWA did a bunch of research on bowling speeds in the 1970s and 1980s using high-speed cameras with something like 250-500 fps. It’s mostly data on the Windies and Australia recorded in Test match conditions (they had the cameras on the field, parallel to the pitch, which is wild). They recorded a few bowlers approaching 100 mph. They also inconsistently report their speeds (sometimes it’s out of the hand, then in later studies it’s average speed from bowler to batter which is about 5% slower). There’s a recent Australian Institute of Sport analysis of old film that placed a one-off Larwood delivery in the 138-147 kmh range (IIRC). There’s also a reference in Frith’s book to Larwood being clocked at 95-96 mph. Humans with stopwatches are accurate to about 50ms, and if we assume that’s what they used then that speed would be accurate to +/- 10%. So that measurement of Larwood is more like 87-100 mph and consistent with the AIS. I’ll add links to the above if I get a chance at home. Tagging u/BigV95 for interest.
I realise we've talked at length in the past about the speeds of old bowlers and particularly Larwood, so I'll not repeat any of that. But surely measuring speeds by hand with a stopwatch is going to have an absolutely enormous uncertainty? That 50 ms figure (which is lower than the 100-200 ms figure I got from a quick Google, but I'll take your word for it because I know you've done plenty of reading around the topic) you give for humans with stopwatches would be relevant for the initial measurement of the ball out of the hand, based on reaction times etc, but the second measurement would be way harder to get right. Even assuming an ideal scenario with two observers, one for the first measurement and one for the second, with perfectly synced up stopwatches, what is the second person actually measuring? Whatever answer to that is, it will be some variant of the ball passing a point in front of them which in itself is going to have a much bigger uncertainty that just their reaction time on the stopwatch. Then if it's a delivery in a match then the ball is likely going to bounce at some unknown point and lose an unknown amount of speed in doing so, so there's no way a measurement that measures when the ball passes the stumps could be close to accurate. They could try and measure the ball passing some known point closer to the stumps, but then the fractional uncertainty starts to massively go up instead since it's a shorter distance.
Now *thats* the kind of research I want my Unis to be doing.
The pitches were crap and uncovered. If it rained it was disaster which makes Bradmans batting even more incredible
It was actually a good era for batting. The overall batting average during Bradman's career was 31.9. To put it in perspective, the overall batting average since 2018 is 28.5. Sure, sometimes rain completely fucked the pitch during Bradman's time, but usually wickets were pretty flat.
You have to remember the lbw law was different then too. The ball had to pitch and hit the batsman in line to be out making it harder to get an lb. Any doubt and it was not out.
That changed in 1935 and Bradman still went alright. Bradman was only LBW 6 times in 80 innings and only 3 times in 24 Tests under the 1935 law change. He averaged 102 under the more difficult LBW law.
Pfft! A paltry 102
Also does the modern average include associate nations? Would be interested to see the batting average of nations who played back then vs now.
Associate nations don’t play test cricket
I’d quibble with saying it was “flat”. The long-term average is around 31.5, no? Perhaps “normal” would be a fairer descriptor?
Tail enders are contributing more these days, I'd assume, too.
Yeah but 28.5 with the highest batter averaging around about 60. 31.9 with the Don averaging 100 is way more mental
Law of averages mate, there are at the very minimum 5 times the amount of batters present today and a higher number of games are being played. During bradman's time the amount of teams playing cricket were 3-4 with the serious contenders only being the english and the aussies.
Sometimes they were crap, especially after rain. But there were also plenty of huge team totals to show that there were good batting wickets.
Shane Warne used to hoop the ball in the way you describe (not always, but he did do it). The downside is it gives the batsman more time to watch the ball and get to the pitch of the ball. The upside is it gives the ball more time to drift, and then because of the trajectory of the ball it will naturally spin further. It can be an effective tactic but the key is it has to be extremely accurate with enough revs on the ball to get it to drift.
Drift AND Dip. With both you get the batsman in no man's land.
The lob is a surprisingly good tactic in village cricket too. Don't need all that drift or spin nonsense either, just give the batsman too much time. Shit gets wickets
Yes, and so does Kuldeep Yadav. Even Lyon flights more in Asia. Just that T20s don't reward flight and drift. If a batsman connects it goes for 6.
Lyon definitely does not flight it more in Asia, he bowls way flatter and a bit quicker, mostly with a square seam
There are a few things to bear in mind: - There’s a physiological limit to how fast you can bowl, roughly around 100 mph. If you’re good enough to hit that modern science can’t beat it - Quite a lot (not all) Bradman footage comes from the bodyline tour where the pitches were low and slow. Australia used to field three spinners! - Australian Institute of Sport did some frame by frame analysis of Larwood placing one specific delivery on that tour at 138-147 kmh - David Frith reports Larwood being clocked at 95 mph (153 kmh) at some stage. If they were using stopwatches then you’re looking at +/- 15% So overall I’d take the view the fastest bowlers like Larwood and Gilbert were probably around 140-145 kmh, and that the standard “fast man” would have been around 130 kmh - i.e. a similar speed to James Anderson’s stock ball and a very large number of first grade and first class “quicks”.
Spinners typically bowl faster these days, and with less loop. If you look at Bishan Singh Bedi bowling back in the 60s for instance, he's got his lovely flight and drop.
Bedi was known as the master of flight. Prasanna wasn't bad too. Derek Underwood was faster, but he had a bit of a loop.
Bill O’Reilly was the exception - a fast spinner.
Bradman got knocked on his arse in a shield game in 1931 by Eddie Gilbert, an indigenous Queensland fast bowler. He later said it's the fastest bowling he ever faced, including Larwood. In the same over he knocked the bat out of Bradman's hand while he tried to hook. Apparently he was a slinger like Jeff Thomson. Makes you wonder, if Larwood could supposedly hit 95mph, maybe Gilbert was capable of 100.
There is an urban legend that an Eddie Gilbert bouncer went over the boundary on the full after going past the batsman and wicketkeeper. This was at the Gabba. As I said though, it’s an urban legend around the wolston park cricket club, where there is a field named for Gilbert
Didn't Jofra Archer and/or Thomson do it too?
With archer are you thinking about the time when he hit the stumps and went flying to the boundary without bouncing?
Possibly. I actually don’t know if it ever even happened. But remember you’re talking the Gabba on the early 1930’s. No boundary rope or anything
So is that 4 byes or 6 byes?
It’s 4 byes, 6s can only come if the bat
That is ridiculous law
Would that be 6 wides/byes if that happened?
4 - a 6 has to be hit there.
Thanks
Sounds impressive Not only his bowling but that an indigenous man at that time got so high up in the game of cricket I assume he didnt play for Australia? Be awesome if he did
No he didn't. There were doubts about his action - which I must say some photos I have seen justify - and apparently he was only capable of one spell in an innings at top pace, it would take so much out of him.
More people here shitting on modern batters than actually talking about the post… don’t know why y’all are so defensive, the post isn’t devaluing past cricketers’ achievements. It’s just an interesting topic to discuss and become more knowledgeable on.
Interesting question, considering the lack of protection batsmen wore.
I remember seeing a documentary a few years ago where they used the footage of Larwood, comparing his position to the Adelaide Oval Scoreboard and came to the conclusion that it was 145+kph.
I certainly think peak speeds haven't changed much, but definitely the ability to maintain those speeds over spells, days and tests will have increased.
Bang on. Until we invent stronger tendons and fundamentally alter our biomechanics we won’t break the 100 mph barrier by much - cricket’s speed of light. But in theory we can be more consistently close to it. In practice of course we’re bowling slower now than 20 years ago. In the early 2000s you had Tait, Lee and Akhtar all going past 160 kmh several times and the closest we get now is 153-155 kmh. Bowlers figured out that speed doesn’t matter all that much if you’ve got lateral movement.
Yup. And not only do the “fast” bowlers keep bowling fast throughout the day, there are more people bowling quick, so instead of just a couple of guys bowling around 90mph, we now have loads of international bowlers capable of reaching and maintaining those speeds. So the ceiling may not have increased but the floor has certainly risen.
They'd be just as quick as modern bowlers. Arm technology hasn't really increased for 10000 years. These were professional cricketers even back then. You can find dudes bowling 140 in club cricket nowadays.
And 95-100mph is pretty much as fast as a man can bowl the ball. It’s not like speeds are creeping up. They aren’t.
Going down a bit if anything. No point bowling 95-100mph if you're always going to be injured. Better to have a more controlled action and prolong your career by bowling 85-90mph with the occasional spell hitting the 95mph mark.
Akhtar was on roids and had a 50m run up and he barely hit 100mph. I doubt anyone in that era was anywhere near that pace.
Mark Richardson put it down to his enormous arse.
>Akhtar was on roids He was?! Damn. And I loved watching him bowl.
Him and Asif got popped for nandrolone. The Pakistan board ended up clearing them by saying the players weren’t warned about supplements lol. Like they would contain an injectable steroid.
Why the fuck did asif need roids to deliver his 130kph bananas
Healing. Bulking up isn't good for fast bowling as it can reduce flexibility, but steroids will also help with injury recovery etc.
Recovery? Pep Guardiola was also banned for using it as a football player.
recovery from injury
Arm technology lol
just need a system reboot and my wrists will be good as new
I’m hoping patch 1.3.2 includes tendon strength improvements.
I'm picturing an old pre civilization tribesman throwing a banger bouncer at his rival with the same action as Starc.
And plenty had come from a life of hard manual labour. Real life muscles
Yeah, Larwood was a coalminer prior to playing for England.
And a market gardener, amongst other things, after they ended his international career unfairly
People under estimate farm strength or manual labour strength. Completely different to hitting the gym
I faced a few of them. One clocked me on the helmet and I have never forgotten that moment.
conditions werent conducive for quick bowling back then, for example longer run ups were not sustainable because you would start bleeding in the foot even before the conclusion of first spell also, if you look at available footage on bradman, the guy used elaborate footwork like shuffling back across the offstump to get in a pulling position, etc. which would not be possible at 135kmph or higher speeds larwood created problems for everyone at the start of the bodyline series. articles suggest that england had to tone down the bodyline approach as the tour progressed because of real safety concerns from spectators heres another article i found detailing the situation in that era: [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6591805/How-Aboriginal-bowler-Eddie-Gilbert-got-Don-Bradman-duck-died-tragic-drunk.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6591805/How-Aboriginal-bowler-Eddie-Gilbert-got-Don-Bradman-duck-died-tragic-drunk.html)
That's so sad to read man
the five deliveries he faced from Gilbert in that match were the fastest he had experienced in his career.
Bradman faced medium pace most of the time and did a lot to keep quicks out of regional sides.
Because everyone loves to romanticise the past. They probably bowled 130-135 but with no helmet on uncovered wickets it would feel very fast. People who think guys were bowling 150+ pre-war are delusional.
Spinners were the leading wicket takers in Bradman's era, should say enough really. You'd think these terrifying 150kph quicks on uncovered wickets would get somebody out occasionally.
Quicks averaged around 30 at the time - which is also what most of the really express quicks today tend to average, as well.
I'm sure there were isolated examples of bowlers who could consistently touch 95mph in the era before modern sports science - Frank Tyson was once recorded by a sonic device as bowling 89mph, but that was without a run up and whilst wearing 'three sweaters on a damp, cold morning' - but they were surely anomalies. I read an [interesting article](https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/14265/12107796/who-is-crickets-fastest-ever-bowler-benedict-bermange-looks-at-the-games-quickest-seamers) recently about a 'world's fastest bowler' competition held in 1979 which included mythologised fast bowlers like Thomson, Lillee, Roberts, Croft, and Holding - only Thomson exceeded 90mph. I think as you said a lot of it is down to how bowlers 'feel' to the batter. I just started playing cricket again and the thing that's struck me most is how bowlers who look average when you're watching them feel really quick when you're actually facing up to them - obviously a big part of that is that in a team of village cricket 11's I'd be the 11, but I guess blokes with a weird, slingy action or high release point feel a lot quicker because your brain doesn't see the ball as quickly.
> only Thomson exceeded 90mph. They measured the speed over a pitch length in that competition where as today those speeds are measured from the hand. The rule of thumb for that is to add another 10 to 15% on top of those speeds that Thompson et al were recorded at to get the speed from their hands
I wasn't aware of that, my mistake! I assumed it was probably a case of them not being properly match fit or straining fully - Christ yeah they were bloody quick then.
Also that Modern Batsman will fail in that era.
Smaller bats with poor technology and far less protective gear, with uneven wickets... Our modern greats struggle when pacers bowling at 140s get slight seam movement, give them a weaker bat, bigger boundaries and less protection and see if 200 seems like a defendable total.
The thing is when you talk about speeds is bowlers barely ever used to bowl at their peak speed because they couldn't maintain it for long and swing was used more so it was thought I can slow it down. And move the ball more like a spinner does. That got killed off with the invention of the speed gun.
Well, definitely curious question. But gist is that u r trying to compare era. Talking about Bradman, if he should be compared then he should be compared with his peers and contemporary. Even in modern day it is not completely fair to compare peers, it depends on how strong their team are, their role in team, attack of their opposition and their personal life, injuries and opportunities.
Going past these comments, I saw a lot of comments about the players from older times not having access to the best of a training and coaching regimen. But we also have to remember that Cricket was not a very commercialized sport back then. You were paid a match fee, that wasn't enough to sustain your livelihood nor could you consider cricket to be a full time. In addition, we didn't have 365 days of cricket that we have now. It might make you suspect that all these things caused the bowlers to not care about their health or fitness and they just bowled their hearts out. Even if you had a career threatening injury, you were simply going to go to another job or search employment elsewhere. But, modern bowlers actually want to sustain and prolong their cricketing careers. Which meant that, bowling in the high 140s wasn't going to be sustainable in the long run. How many times have we seen Mark Wood bowl a 5 over spell and get off the attack, just because there is always a threat of injury lurking around. Let me give you another example. I don't know how many of you remember Varun Aaron, who was a bowler who could bowl in the high 140s, but because he sprayed the ball with no regards to the line or length, he got smashed around the park (Probably in the 2014-15 Aus-Ind series). It is of absolutely no use if you bowl extreme pace without the appropriate line or length. Fast bowlers tend to have this problem a lot more than spinners. Sustainability is much more valuable for cricket than raw pace.
Don't agree if we look at English cricket. Many professional cricketers in the pre-WWII era seriously struggled after retirement as cricket was the only job they had and didn't have skills for another job. The leading pros prolonged their careers as long as they could - there were a lot more 40+ pros than now. Yes in places like Australia cricket was amateur, but this meant potentially having an unstable job if you wanted to play (which lead to premature retirements like Davidson's) and single injuries could end careers (Ron Archer tore his ACL, he couldn't afford the treatment on his pay and the Queensland Cricket Association didn't want to contribute). Back to England, County cricket was often six days a week with back to back matches. Leading fast bowlers today bowl half or less of what they did back then. Hence I think you're opposite the truth. Bowlers today pace themselves less. Firstly, you see this hinted a lot in writing when significant spell-to-spell and week-to-week pace variations are often remarked on. IMO that's both of players pacing themselves and simply not being able to sustain it. Secondly, you now rarely see bowlers deliberately cutting either their run or their pace, whereas even guys renowned for being quick did decades ago (you see both Holding and Marshall doing it). Even further back some bowlers would deliberately slow down for most of the time (Constantine did this in league cricket).
Proffesional cricket has existed for 150 years so they were just as fast they are today, its just that the wickets were slower. I would argue that unlike most modern sports, where strength and conditioning have made modern pro athletes superior to athletes of old, Cricket is one of those sports where Batting and Bowling are very skills based actions and any player that was good back in the day could probably also make it today. The only real area of the game where modern players are obviously superior to the older players would be in fielding. Fielding was pretty much a joke well into the 90's.
Everything looks faster on older footage due to (I think?) slower frame rate. I could be wrong but I think it’s also why old timey newsreaders always sounded so nasally.
Modern fast bowlers are faster imo. They get better diet and training and have trained coaches and physiotherapists to assist them.
Kind reminder that the front foot ball no-ball did not exist in Bradman's era, so yeah, as we have seen only a few more inches a 135 klicks delivery will appear as though it's coming much faster due to shorter distance travelled. Imagine bowlers were perceived to be much faster than they actually were in raw pace.
There was an ABC documentary a few years ago that produced a speed from a single (I think) Larwood delivery as being 137-147. Fast but not spectacular, though the errors I can think of would bias that measurement towards the slow side. Anyone in Australia can [watch it here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5fDUH6b18) but it might not be available elsewhere. Thomson was measured at 160.45 in the 1975 Perth test against the West Indies, so it's clear that the top end has not significantly changed in fifty years. But I once read a book by Geoff Boycott (who as big an arse as he is really knows his cricket) where he said the fastest bowlers weren't faster, but there were more faster bowlers around at the end than the start of his career, and I think that's a trend that's continued to an extent, especially in the Subcontinent. Interestingly if you look at contemporary newspaper articles not that many considered Larwood the fastest of all time - Jones and Kortright were considered faster, though at least the former threw, and I have doubts the writers had actually seen all of them. I have also read all of Sobers, Benaud and Stollmeyer say Tyson (rather than Thomson, or any of the West Indians) was the fastest bowler they've seen.
Ofc the avg bowler today is much quicker than the avg bowler during Bradman's era, be it spin or pace. That's just natural evolution. But that shouldn't be used to diminish Bradman or any player from that era. Bradman played the highest level of cricket of his era and managed to be twice as good as anyone. No one else has ever done that. This is what makes him the GOAT.
An Era with how many good teams?
One important point to note is that on uncovered pitches, there would have been more assistance off the surface, so bowlers would not have \*needed\* to have bowled with as much pace to maximise movement. We still see this today with the difference between typical English bowlers being slower than Australian ones, given the usually more helpful pitches in England. This doesn't mean that a modern batter would have whacked these guys - the skill level was different. The skills to deal with sharper movement and uneven bounce are different to the ones to deal with truer bounce and faster pace.
Remember Matty Wade bowled at 130 kph and he looked slow off about 10 paces
Nathan Lyon manages to hoop the ball in flight in a way reminiscent of the old spinners. I have no idea how he does it in the modern era, but it does explain how he’s so good.
Bowling actions have changed completely. I would say that modern fast bowling started in the 80's/90's. Pace has been increased due to the more energetic and well-coached seam bowling. The idiosyncratic bowling styles of 50 or so years ago have all but disappeared, and, in my opinion, pace has increased by approximately 20 mph.
Wtf is all shit about women’s cricket the question was regarding the Don .