The fastest bowler of the modern era? (60s onward)

[Hooper]

Tait has to be up there now as well.

Him and Thommo for me.

 

[Sman-21]

from saturdays west australian newspaper

Shoaib Akhtar 161.3 kmh 100.1 mph
Brett Lee 160.8 kmh 99.9 mph
Jeff Thompson 160.6 kmh 99.8 mph
Shaun Tait 160.2 kmh 99.5 mph
Andy Roberts 159.5 knh 99.1 mph
Dennis Lillee 154.8 kmh 96.2 mph

Talking about the fastest deliveries recorded and how they believe if tait fixes his action he may get close to 170kmh
needs to stop collapsing back leg on release of ball.
Allowing him to send the ball down at a greater height.

 

[angryangy]

Lol yeah but its always fun to speculate and that about our cricketing history.

Yeah, but some of us are lucky enough to repeat themselves a lot to resolve confusion.

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283875.html

The 1979 competition was gauged using some sort of calculation, you might be able to contact Dr Pyke and ask him yourself, but it's believed to have underestimated the speed of each bowler by some margin, albeit equally and so irrelevant for the sake of competition.

However, the earlier study reported fantastic speed not only from Thomson, but also Roberts. This study is the reason everyone knows Thomson could bowl at 100 mph.

The discrepancy is such that you can either wonder how all these bowlers lost 10 kph in only 3 years, or assume that the '79 method underestimated speeds by up to 10 kph, probably a bit under 10. Age I think is also telling; Hadlee played ten more years at international level, so it is preposterous to say he was already innocuous at age 28. Given an extra 10 kph, you get a reasonable top speed.
Eg;

Thomson (29) 158
Holding (25) 151
Imran Khan (27) 150
Croft (26) 149
Roberts (28) 149
Lillee (30) 146
Le Roux (24) 146
Daniel (23) 143
Pascoe (29) 142
Hadlee (28) 140
Procter (33) 139
Sarfraz Nawaz (31) 132

And nearly 30 years later, I don't think that's a startling number of fast men to suggest an incorrect listing. Just out of the Australians, which I've been making notes on you can find a good number that bowl with brisk pace.

approximate fastest Australians this season

Tait (24) 160
Lee (31) 155
Johnson (26) 150
Nannes (31) 145
Cameron (26) 143
Edmonson (29) 142
Harwood (33) 142
Bollinger (26) 140
Geeves (25) 140

And I'm sure if you add up the Steyns and Morkels going around you get enough of those high 140s bowlers to make a list that looks very similar to the previous list.

 

[ivanvdm15]

from saturdays west australian newspaper

Shoaib Akhtar 161.3 kmh 100.1 mph
Brett Lee 160.8 kmh 99.9 mph
Jeff Thompson 160.6 kmh 99.8 mph
Shaun Tait 160.2 kmh 99.5 mph
Andy Roberts 159.5 knh 99.1 mph
Dennis Lillee 154.8 kmh 96.2 mph

Talking about the fastest deliveries recorded and how they believe if tait fixes his action he may get close to 170kmh
needs to stop collapsing back leg on release of ball.
Allowing him to send the ball down at a greater height.

Those are Pretty interesting i never knew Dennis Lillee was in the top 6...

 

[Adarsh]

I reckon Shoaib's got one.