Whats the greatest spectacle in the cricketing world?

Some would say it’s the sight of a batsman at the top of his game clipping almost every delivery to the fence, for others its a technically correct batsman playing his shots whilst in deep concentration, for some its a spinner continually bamboozling the batsman with a variety of deliveries and most would swear thats its the sight of a fast bowler tearing down to the crease and releasing a thunderbolt that crashes through the stumps leaving the batsman bewildered.

What do I enjoy watching?

Well I love it when two great fast bowlers are tearing in from both ends releasing thunderbolts that dance through the air and leave the batsmen no respite from either end. I love watching the pressure build up on the batsmen as they are often forced to play every delivery and every delivery is one that could easily take their wicket. I love it when a teams batting order is made to collapse by a tandem of quality fast bowlers, thats when i really sit up and take notice but one thing has always bothered me. Which pair of fast bowlers were the best?

The thing about pairings is that they dont often last that long and sometimes one of the bowlers will be at his peak whilst the other is either past it or is still learning the trade. Some of the greatest pairings have been Marshall/Holding, Wasim/Waqar, Donald/Pollock, Lillee/Thommo, Srinath/Prasad (according to Majid), McGrath/Gillespie and of course Ambrose/Walsh. But which of these pairings were the best? When I did my research for the greatest fast bowler, I was left with the figures to answer that question once and for all!!!

I will be using the peak 6 year periods of each bowler whilst they were bowling in tandem, these figures may differ from each players personal peak but this is about finding the greatest PAIR at the peak of their bowling powers. I will take each players individual figures add them together and divide the result by two (rounding up or down to the nearest number) to find the best pair of fast bowlers in history. Each pair will be ranked by their combined S/R to see how effective they were when bowling in tandem, the results are (with the best pair at the top) as follows…

194 wkts at an avg of 20.02 with a S/R of 38.0 for Waqar (1990-95)
195 wkts at an avg of 19.87 with a S/R of 46.4 for Wasim (1990-95)
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195 wkts at an avg of 19.95 with a S/R of 42.2 as a pair (1990-95)

238 wkts at an avg of 18.90 with a S/R of 43.1 for Marshall (1981-86)
151 wkts at an avg of 21.61 with a S/R of 45.9 for Holding (1981-86)
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195 wkts at an avg of 20.26 with a S/R of 44.5 as a pair (1981-86)

203 wkts at an avg of 22.17 with a S/R of 45.9 for Lillee (1976-81)
~98 wkts at an avg of 26.05 with a S/R of 49.0 for Thommson (1976-81)
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151 wkts at an avg of 24.11 with a S/R of 47.45 as a pair (1976-81)

221 wkts at an avg of 19.90 with a S/R of 43.6 for Donald (1996-2001)
249 wkts at an avg of 19.95 with a S/R of 52.9 for Pollock (1996-2001)
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235 wkts at an avg of 19.93 with a S/R of 48.3 as a pair (1996-2001)

321 wkts at an avg of 20.44 with a S/R of 49.8 for McGrath (1997-2002)
142 wkts at an avg of 25.26 with a S/R of 50.2 for Gillespie (1997-2002)
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232 wkts at an avg of 22.85 with a S/R of 50.0 as a pair (1997-2002)

176 wkts at an avg of 21.40 with a S/R of 53.3 for Ambrose (1994-99)
223 wkts at an avg of 25.44 with a S/R of 57.7 for Walsh (1994-99)
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200 wkts at an avg of 23.42 with a S/R of 55.5 as a pair (1994-99)

139 wkts at an avg of 28.12 with a S/R of 56.4 for Srinath (1996-2001)
~85 wkts at an avg of 35.90 with a S/R of 75.9 for Prasad (1996-2001)
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112 wkts at an avg of 32.01 with a S/R of 66.2 as a pair (1996-2001)

…between 1990 and 1995 Wasim and Waqar were the most potent opening attack in the history of the game, even surpassing the Holdings-Marshall duo. I was surprised to see the position of the Ambrose-Walsh pair because a lot of people not only tend to compare them to Wasim-Waqar but some even say that they were better as a pair!!!

The S African pair at number 4 and the Aussie pair at Number 5 just goes to show why both these teams are currently ranked number 1 and number 2. If Pakistan had half the batting of the Aussies and the Saffies when Wasim and Waqar were destroying batting line-ups then they would have been ranked the number 1 team of the 1990′s. It proves that great bowlers cant win you matches on their own, you need quality batsmen to back them up too!!