Curtly Ambrose vs. Dennis Lille vs. Wasim Akram

Yes, as the title suggests, this is a three way comparison to decide who is the best fast bowler the world has ever seen. I would like to make it clear at the outset that if it weren’t for the concern over the length of the article, I would include a few more bowlers on the list for comparison. This includes Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Fred Truman, Alan Donald, etc. There are some bowlers who were as good as these three but do not qualify as fast bowlers, for example Richard Hadley. India produced a great fast-medium bowler in Kapildev. He used to say that the only thing missing from his repertoire was genuine rhythm. I mean genuine pace when I say fast bowler, which means the bowler can consistently bowl over 90 miles (143 km) per hour. There’s nothing like a genuine beat to fuel your bowling aspirations. The world has seen a number of good bowlers who weren’t penetrating enough when needed because they lacked the pace to destroy the opposition enough times.

Big Curtly Ambrose was the most powerful fast pitcher I’ve ever seen. He could rip the heart out of his batting line with an arsenal range that is unparalleled in cricket history. The initial impression someone had when seeing Ambrose for the first time was that this guy means rebound. In the green tops of Kingston, he’d be on your chin all the time. But that wasn’t always the case with Ambrose. Watch videos of him from his golden years and you can see a smart pitcher changing the length of him, controlling the amount of bounce to get the ball in and out to fool the batter. This doesn’t mean he couldn’t get the rebound. Rest assured, when necessary, he can bend his back and the music from his chin can be heard loud and clear. That incredible spell at WACA against Australia when he took 7 wickets for 1 run just shows the man’s talent in all its glory. Yorkers, on swinging deliveries, leg cutters bouncing steep; it was all there to see. He stands at 6-foot-6, which naturally forced the hitter’s thinking to move on his back foot. He would smartly see this and change the way he delivered the ball to a slightly slower pitch in the swing without bouncing over the top of the stumps and catching the LBW batter. However, he was lucky to find a smart patient and partner on the other end in Courtney Walsh, who could keep up with him day after day and was a bad client in her own right. Accurate, unplayable, and simply unstoppable when in Sir Curtly Ambrose’s form! A bowler every captain dreams of and the great ability to cut through the opposition while defending a small score was a nightmare for the opposition. He seemed as if he specialized in eliminating oppositions in low-scoring matters.

Dennis Lille was a tough, mean and aggressive fastball. When speed bowling history is written, he will start and end in Lille. Absolutely a perfect fast launcher! When you’re talking Australian cricket, a sled discussion isn’t far off and Lille had a triple PhD in that. This also means various incidents against opponents. Javed Miandad immediately comes to mind and there were many others. He said in one of his interviews that he was willing to die on the pitch to get the wicket from him. That pretty much sums up his approach. Unfortunately, however, he is remembered more for his fielding antics than for the several great fast bowling displays he produced. For all Australians, winning the Ashes is the number one goal. And England have suffered greatly at the hands of Lille in this endeavor. Once they decided to prepare tame wickets for Australia on their visit to the UK, thinking this would give them a chance against the great bowler who was supported by another even faster and badder bowler named Jeff Thompson. But it didn’t quite happen as Lille slowed their pace down a bit, concentrated on the bowling cutters moving both ways and once again cut the UK batting in half by taking five hundred in both innings to win the match for Australia. The West Indies team in the 1970s under the management of Clive Lloyd was considered to be one of the greatest teams of all time with many great players. But this team suffered a humiliating 1-5 Test series defeat in 1976 while playing for the Frank Worrel trophy. The main spoilers were Lille and Thompson. This duo is also regarded as the greatest fast bowling pair of all time. The worst part from a hitting point of view was that he could also throw long spells and he was just with you all the time without a break. Caught Marsh bowled Lille was a term that became established during this period in which the great bowler was ably supported by the wicket-keeper to achieve victories. There used to be big arguments amongst the Brits about how to approach the rhythm duo of Lille and Thompson and the famous joke went round the circle at the time. An elderly woman who overheard the arguments asked how England batsmen could be traumatized by a woman named Lillian Thompson. She had to endure many career-threatening injuries at the same time. But thanks to his vigorous recovery programs, he reinvigorated his run and came out more determined, if a little slower.

I first saw Wasim Akram in 1985 in Australia at the Benson Hedges Cup, which India won by the way. There was little first class infrastructure in Pakistan at that time and the Pak captains and senior players used to pick up the talented cricketers from the nets. Javed Miandad had chosen this lanky and clumsy left arm pacer and my first reaction was what kind of bowling action is that? But one clearly notable thing was that he was an awkward customer from a hitter’s point of view. Like the two stalwarts discussed above, he was versatile. He could throw six different balls in a row without changing his expression. He was called the sultan of swing. A true teacher! His yorkers and in dippers were not only effective but bowled with such precision that the clean bowling batsman left the crease with a look of disbelief on his face. How the hell could delivery swing like this and so late? This was the time when the world was taking notice of the reverse swing. Wasim was also the best batsman out of these three and was a true all-rounder. He was instrumental in Pakistan’s first world cup victory in 1992. He literally carried Pakistan’s bowling on his shoulders with an injured fast bowling partner, Waqar Younus, and outplayed the best of him, Imran Khan. The short run to the crease and the rushing action of the bowling gave the batsmen no time to react. To top it off, the delivery itself was delayed and he launched into the rhythm. If you didn’t have the technique to deal with these kinds of hostile bowling, you were pretty much dead as K Srikant found out on India’s tour of Pakistan in 1989-1990. In my opinion he was the best international one day bowler of all time due to his ability to narrow down the batting team quickly in a space of a few overs. He took 23 four-wicket hauls in ODI cricket. He also took 4 hat-tricks in international cricket 2 in Tests and 2 in ODIs. He also has a Test match of two hundred to his credit. He an amazing talent and one of the best bowlers the world has ever seen.

Now about my opinion of who is the best fast bowler of all? In ODIs, I think Wasim Akram is the clear number one without a contest. In testing, I’ll go with Curtly Ambrose and Dennis Lille as the combined number 1. I can’t really say which one was better and who I will pick on my team. They bowled at different times and were great bowlers in all respects. One talked a lot and the other not much, that was probably the only clear difference. But scary bowlers all the same! Wasim Akram will be a close third in the tests in my opinion.