Indian cricket pace battery is pretty good now but not really close to Windies late 70s to early 90s pace battery
Given below is content (slightly edited) of post & my comments from my FB post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2389742567908973, dated 12th Jan. 2019
Today's (12th Jan 2019) The Hindu carried this article: Breaking down a historic year for Indian pace-bowling, https://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/2018-best-year-for-indian-pace-bowlers/article25977863.ece.
It stated, "Table 1 shows that this tally is second only to that of the West Indian pace battery in 1980, featuring Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts and Sylvester Clarke, which picked up 189 wickets in 12 overseas Tests."
Ravi: Well, stats wise there may be some closeness between the current Indian pace battery and the Windies pace battery of the 80s and early 90s. And, yes India's pace battery is pretty good now.
But Windies pace battery was something awesome. Indian pace battery is not close to that, IMHO.
Here's a taste of Windies pace battery: Curtly Ambrose taking 7 for 1 (yes 7 wickets for 1 run) in a spell against Australia in Perth, Australia in 1993: (note that the video quality is not great), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7UOy5thUig, 5 mins.
I will also share small clips of other Windies fast bowlers' great spells in the comments of this post. Those guys were something really extraordinary. It is against these guys that the great Sunil Gavaskar batted and scored centuries. That is why Gavaskar has such a big name among Indian cricket fans of those days - 70s and 80s - including me.
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Four horsemen of death - West Indies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ync2pKXveeE, 2 min. 40 secs.
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For India, Andy Roberts was perhaps the most famous Windies fast bowler of those days. Here's Roberts bagging Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell and Allan Border in 1980 in Adelaide, Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3TlmNFeYM, around 4 mins.
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Andy Roberts got so famous in India that his name figured in a dialogue in Amar Akbar Anthony, the blockbuster film made in 1977. Here's the less than 2 min clip having the reference (towards the end of the clip): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aYISpjKveA
In the movie clip, Amar (Vinod Khanna) asks Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) around 1 min 7 secs in the video: "Robert kahan hai?" (Where is Robert?). Note that Robert is the villain in the movie (if I recall correctly).
Anthony says, "Robert? Kaun Robert?" (Robert? Who Robert?). And then Anthony continues, "Ooo! Woh fast bowler! Andy Robert. Arre Sahab, Match khatam hua, West Indies chala gaya. Apun se sala milke bhi nahi gaya." (Oh! That fast bowler! Andy Robert(s). Oh sir, the match got over and the West Indies went away. The fellow did not even meet me before going.)
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Around 37 mins and so longish but shows the dominance of Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Courtney Walsh in a Windies tour of Australia in the 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VOGoiaZlX8. The Indian pace battery today is good but can we say it is as menacing as what the above video shows of the Windies fast bowlers of the 80s? From what little bit I saw of summary video clips of this (just finished India-Australia) series, I don't think so. The Windies fast bowling pack was far more menacing!
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Big Joel Garner tormenting Greg Chappell (1979): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ah524EPXxo
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English captain Tony Greig said of the West Indies team, before the series I guess, that once the West Indies are down "they grovel". That's it! Clive Lloyd the captain of the West Indies team let the team know that they have to give it to the English on the cricket field. What followed was ***brutal***. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cozSq8XC-LU, 3 min. 36 secs.
The description of the video says, "This is from a documentary called Fire in Babylon - 2010". I looked around and found this link which seems to have the video of the documentary: https://www.hotstar.com/movies/fire-in-babylon/1000180223/watch. I plan to see it later on.
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From my FB post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2390432244506672, dated 13th Jan. 2019:
Patrick Patterson's fearsome pace (late 80s or early 90s I guess) knocks bat out of batman's (Andrew Hudson's) grip! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgH6qxD7E0Y, 29 secs. The title of the video seems to be misleading though as I doubt if it has been recorded as the fastest ball.
Video showing awesome bowling performance of Patrick Patterson at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Dec. 1988, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExYqoPIIx2w, 4 mins
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I have also appreciated the performance of the Indian fast bowlers in the just concluded India-Australia test series on some Facebook posts, which I have shared here: https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/12/miscellaneous-facebook-posts-comments.html. I have also copy-pasted relevant content of that post below:
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2379144605635436
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6kV8BpbR8g, 1 min. 28 secs.
Rain could not deny the Indian cricket team the victory they deserved in this test match.
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https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2379152578967972
Moment of great triumph for Indian cricket team and its captain Virat Kohli, as they have gone 2-1 up in the 4 match test series with one match to go, and retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy as the worst case scenario for them is Australia only drawing the series. Fittingly, one of the pics, which is shown in the preview on this post, has the star wicket takers, Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma, with what I think is the centurion, Cheteshwar Pujara (it seems it is Mohammad Shami and not Pujara as per one comment on the post), all with a stump souvenir each: https://twitter.com/imVkohli/status/1079227976393342976. The tweet also has a pic of the celebrating Indian team.
Fascinating to see Indian fast bowlers be so menacing! In my avid cricket fan days a few decades ago, India had only medium pace bowlers who were never menacing, whereas the top opposition teams like West Indies and Australia had top notch and very menacing fast bowlers - Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson etc.
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FB post of mine, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2363207697229127, dated 10th Dec. 2018:
In my avid cricket fan days in the mid-70s to 80s, it was quite common to read about India fighting hard but losing to Australia in test matches in Australia. Somehow, Australia would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat whenever they landed into some big problem in a test match with India (and with many other countries' cricket teams). Great, for me an Indian, to see a different outcome for this first test match in the current series in Australia. But the Aussie tail sure did rattle the Indians including their captain, as can be seen from the body language while the Aussie tail was heroically trying, but eventually failed, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4t1izuBS-E
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Today's (12th Jan 2019) The Hindu carried this article: Breaking down a historic year for Indian pace-bowling, https://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/2018-best-year-for-indian-pace-bowlers/article25977863.ece.
It stated, "Table 1 shows that this tally is second only to that of the West Indian pace battery in 1980, featuring Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts and Sylvester Clarke, which picked up 189 wickets in 12 overseas Tests."
Ravi: Well, stats wise there may be some closeness between the current Indian pace battery and the Windies pace battery of the 80s and early 90s. And, yes India's pace battery is pretty good now.
But Windies pace battery was something awesome. Indian pace battery is not close to that, IMHO.
Here's a taste of Windies pace battery: Curtly Ambrose taking 7 for 1 (yes 7 wickets for 1 run) in a spell against Australia in Perth, Australia in 1993: (note that the video quality is not great), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7UOy5thUig, 5 mins.
I will also share small clips of other Windies fast bowlers' great spells in the comments of this post. Those guys were something really extraordinary. It is against these guys that the great Sunil Gavaskar batted and scored centuries. That is why Gavaskar has such a big name among Indian cricket fans of those days - 70s and 80s - including me.
-----
Four horsemen of death - West Indies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ync2pKXveeE, 2 min. 40 secs.
----
For India, Andy Roberts was perhaps the most famous Windies fast bowler of those days. Here's Roberts bagging Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell and Allan Border in 1980 in Adelaide, Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3TlmNFeYM, around 4 mins.
----
Andy Roberts got so famous in India that his name figured in a dialogue in Amar Akbar Anthony, the blockbuster film made in 1977. Here's the less than 2 min clip having the reference (towards the end of the clip): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aYISpjKveA
In the movie clip, Amar (Vinod Khanna) asks Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) around 1 min 7 secs in the video: "Robert kahan hai?" (Where is Robert?). Note that Robert is the villain in the movie (if I recall correctly).
Anthony says, "Robert? Kaun Robert?" (Robert? Who Robert?). And then Anthony continues, "Ooo! Woh fast bowler! Andy Robert. Arre Sahab, Match khatam hua, West Indies chala gaya. Apun se sala milke bhi nahi gaya." (Oh! That fast bowler! Andy Robert(s). Oh sir, the match got over and the West Indies went away. The fellow did not even meet me before going.)
----
Around 37 mins and so longish but shows the dominance of Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Courtney Walsh in a Windies tour of Australia in the 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VOGoiaZlX8. The Indian pace battery today is good but can we say it is as menacing as what the above video shows of the Windies fast bowlers of the 80s? From what little bit I saw of summary video clips of this (just finished India-Australia) series, I don't think so. The Windies fast bowling pack was far more menacing!
----
Big Joel Garner tormenting Greg Chappell (1979): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ah524EPXxo
----
English captain Tony Greig said of the West Indies team, before the series I guess, that once the West Indies are down "they grovel". That's it! Clive Lloyd the captain of the West Indies team let the team know that they have to give it to the English on the cricket field. What followed was ***brutal***. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cozSq8XC-LU, 3 min. 36 secs.
The description of the video says, "This is from a documentary called Fire in Babylon - 2010". I looked around and found this link which seems to have the video of the documentary: https://www.hotstar.com/movies/fire-in-babylon/1000180223/watch. I plan to see it later on.
----
==============================================================
From my FB post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2390432244506672, dated 13th Jan. 2019:
Patrick Patterson's fearsome pace (late 80s or early 90s I guess) knocks bat out of batman's (Andrew Hudson's) grip! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgH6qxD7E0Y, 29 secs. The title of the video seems to be misleading though as I doubt if it has been recorded as the fastest ball.
Video showing awesome bowling performance of Patrick Patterson at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Dec. 1988, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExYqoPIIx2w, 4 mins
----
==============================================================
I have also appreciated the performance of the Indian fast bowlers in the just concluded India-Australia test series on some Facebook posts, which I have shared here: https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/12/miscellaneous-facebook-posts-comments.html. I have also copy-pasted relevant content of that post below:
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2379144605635436
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6kV8BpbR8g, 1 min. 28 secs.
Rain could not deny the Indian cricket team the victory they deserved in this test match.
----
https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2379152578967972
Moment of great triumph for Indian cricket team and its captain Virat Kohli, as they have gone 2-1 up in the 4 match test series with one match to go, and retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy as the worst case scenario for them is Australia only drawing the series. Fittingly, one of the pics, which is shown in the preview on this post, has the star wicket takers, Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma, with what I think is the centurion, Cheteshwar Pujara (it seems it is Mohammad Shami and not Pujara as per one comment on the post), all with a stump souvenir each: https://twitter.com/imVkohli/status/1079227976393342976. The tweet also has a pic of the celebrating Indian team.
Fascinating to see Indian fast bowlers be so menacing! In my avid cricket fan days a few decades ago, India had only medium pace bowlers who were never menacing, whereas the top opposition teams like West Indies and Australia had top notch and very menacing fast bowlers - Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson etc.
===================================================================
FB post of mine, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2363207697229127, dated 10th Dec. 2018:
In my avid cricket fan days in the mid-70s to 80s, it was quite common to read about India fighting hard but losing to Australia in test matches in Australia. Somehow, Australia would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat whenever they landed into some big problem in a test match with India (and with many other countries' cricket teams). Great, for me an Indian, to see a different outcome for this first test match in the current series in Australia. But the Aussie tail sure did rattle the Indians including their captain, as can be seen from the body language while the Aussie tail was heroically trying, but eventually failed, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4t1izuBS-E
-----
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