Fear of leather - Part 1

Anything which moves fast is quite a difficult thing to foresee and tackle with .Consider an object in air which moves along quickly also starts to sway away, keep imagining how difficult it would be to anticipate where that thing would be finally(Hiesenberg's Uncertainty huh ?) .Imagining a bulltet fired from a gun ?.

Well here I draw the analogy with a cricket ball .Similarly as it happens in the game of cricket. A fast moving ball can be very unconformable for any batsman to handle and to score run against. I have always thought a pace bowler running up in rhythm on a lush green field with the wind blowing behind him and then his delivery uprooting the timber is one of the best sight in the game of cricket.

A fast inswinger or a pacy bouncer can make a good batsman look like tottering kid.From time to time fast bowlers have become the nemesis of the batsman. Even the best bastman would get some jitters when facing a true fast bowler.

In this post I will divulge myself in discussing and sharing about the 10 best fast bowlers of last 2 decades (basically the time from which I am following the game).It will be a two part post as it is quite difficult to capture all the aspects in one post.I also start it by paying tribute to the infamous pace quatret of West Indies in the late seventies and early eighties.(in the picture from left Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner) They actually showed how menacing and fearsome pace bowling can be.To properly envision what it mean check the 'Fire in Babylon' documentary.

So here is my list of fast bowlers.

10. Shane Bond: I say very less people have as good an action as Bond had. Bond’s toe breaking Yorkers coupled with his express pace made him a menacing bowler. Also coming from a country where there has been no pedigree of fast bowlers apart from Sir Richard Hadlee.I consider him to take in the Top 10.

9. Courtney Walsh: A bowler who had bowled the least number of extras during his bowling tenure. Discipline and Dilligence were synonymous with Walsh. He successfully carried the legacy of great West Indian bowlers forward. I can recall that he was one of the few fast bowler captains the game has ever witnessed.

8. Chaminda Vaas: Claimed as Sultan of swing. He loyally held the citadel of Sri lankan seam attack for years. He became better and better as he aged on and his potent swings were literally unplayable. Coming from the pitches where there was little assistance to a pace bowler, Vaas’s credentials as a bowler accentuate more.

7. Jason Gilespie: May not be one of the elegant bowlers or as charismatic as his contemporaries. Some may argue with me about his inclusion in the top ten lists but for me Jason Gilespie was a toiler, was a hard worker. He was always there to provide support to the main strike bowlers like McGrath and Lee. Most of the times because of his endurance the strike bowlers used to reap rewards .A special mention must go to his batting where he used to hang in however the condition was. His grittiness was exemplary and to me he was a great character the game has ever seen.

6. Waqar Younis : One of the genuine swingers of the ball, both with the new and older ball. He showed an extra-ordinary mastery over the reverse swing .In fact I can say he was one of the pioneers of reverse swinging. One of the Double W’s of Pakistan pace attack Waqar had troubled and subjugated almost all the best batters of his generation.

Dont miss to check the next and the final concluding part of this blog where i reveal the top five of the list .And also wait and watch for the inglorious list of fast bowlers who they say were fast and furious.