Best Australian Test Quicks This Century

Apr 8, 2012
2,824
4,403
Canberra
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Boston Bruins, Toronto Blue Jays
How good was our bowling attack.. McGrath, Gillespie, Lee and Warne. Kasprowicz and MacGill as back ups.

If Macgill had just been born a few years later he'd be seen a lot differently, was an absolute A-grade cricketer who was unfortunate to be in the same generation as Shane Warne, we'd have killed for somebody that good after Warne retired.
 

Costanza_

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 2, 2008
6,654
8,428
Sydney
AFL Club
Sydney
Other Teams
West Ham United
Harris would have gone down as one of the all time greats if he had played 100 tests. We didn't see nearly enough of him.

Agree with others that of those listed, McGrath, Harris, Johnson is the best lineup.
 
Jan 26, 2006
40,446
31,699
Perth
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
East Fremantle
Must've been so demoralising.

You're down 2-0, you've just watched Shane ******* Watson hit a run a ball century followed by George Bailey hitting 28 runs off an over, you're chasing 500 in the 4th innings and your captain is dismissed first ball to an absolute jaffa.

Oh and it was 39, 40, 37, 37 days 1-4 when this was happening.

Don't remind me. * it was torture on the grassbanks.
 
May 5, 2016
43,465
48,500
AFL Club
Geelong
Johnson's peak has him as the best bowler ever. Absolutely astounding. McGrath the best ever with consistency so they have to be in.

Next in line for me is Harris. But any of Starc, Haze or Cummins or even Patrinson could push for the third spot once their careers are over

This is a joke surely.

If you look hard enough you could find dozens of bowlers who had series’ or five match patches as good as that.

Harbhajan Singh in 2001 is an obvious one.

Steyn at one stage took 69 wickets at 15 over four consecutive series, at a strike rate of 28. And two of those four series were in Asia.
He also once had a home summer where he took 33 at 12.5 across 5 tests against New Zealand and Pakistan.

That is just two examples from a small new-millennial period. I’m sure there are dozens more.

Waqar Younis’ second full series saw him take 29, in 3 tests mind you, against NZ in Pakistan, at an average of 10 and a strike rate of 29.9.
 

Outshined

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 12, 2009
7,990
15,873
WA
AFL Club
Fremantle
The other thing to bear in mind with Harris is that he played probably two thirds of his test career in a lot of pain. That effort against South Africa in Cape Town is one of the best mixes of bowling guile combined with pure guts that I've ever seen. He'd be considered a modern great if his bowling matured a bit quicker and his body had held together.

McGrath is an auto selection. Dizzy's another in the Ryan Harris boat, granted with a longer career. Johnson's inconsistency probably rules him out, absolutely unplayable in a few series/tests but his efforts against England 2009-2011 can't be forgotten. Stuart Clark is a great shout too.

We've had some fantastic pace bowlers and fortunately it looks like we're still churning them out.
 

The_Eagles

Norm Smith Medallist
Jun 30, 2005
5,752
1,912
North Fremantle
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
australia
This is a joke surely.

If you look hard enough you could find dozens of bowlers who had series’ or five match patches as good as that.

Harbhajan Singh in 2001 is an obvious one.

Steyn at one stage took 69 wickets at 15 over four consecutive series, at a strike rate of 28. And two of those four series were in Asia.
He also once had a home summer where he took 33 at 12.5 across 5 tests against New Zealand and Pakistan.

That is just two examples from a small new-millennial period. I’m sure there are dozens more.

Waqar Younis’ second full series saw him take 29, in 3 tests mind you, against NZ in Pakistan, at an average of 10 and a strike rate of 29.9.


Mitchell Johnson won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy (world's most outstanding player) twice, 2009 and 2014. He's a monty to be in!
 

The Passenger

The passenger, I am...
Veteran 10k Posts 30k Posts Sensible Type WCE Wings Guernsey
Mar 25, 2003
35,681
28,332
If Macgill had just been born a few years later he'd be seen a lot differently, was an absolute A-grade cricketer who was unfortunate to be in the same generation as Shane Warne, we'd have killed for somebody that good after Warne retired.
Or what if MacGill was born 5 years earlier?

In that case he probably would've got selected for Australia before Warne. Would selectors have had the balls to drop a their star leg spinner (MacGill) who averages in the high 20's (good average for a leg spinner) for the fat leg spinner from Victoria who's performances in shield cricket were pretty so-so (161 wickets at 34 over his career)?

Warne thrived on atmosphere, pressure and the attention all of which is obviously significantly higher in test cricket than shield cricket. It is feasible if there was someone in the test team he needed to dislodge his shield performances may have been closer to his test performances, but we'll never know that for sure.

And of course if Macgill was born earlier and got to the test team first, Warne still would have played as they played plenty of tests together so it's not a case of Warney would have never have played test cricket... But Australian cricket could have been mightily different in this scenario.
 

workhorse

Premiership Player
Nov 13, 2006
4,329
3,194
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
Boston Celtics
Funnily enough without having seen this thread, I was thinking to myself this morning on the way to work how much of a gun Ryan Harris was. Our best fast-bowler since McGrath, no doubt in my mind.
 
May 6, 2007
39,095
22,784
South East Suburbs
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Tottenham Hotspurs, Melbourne Vixen
Each player brings something unique to the table.

McGrath is a lock and one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time.
Lee is an enforcer and someone who could bowl tight.
Harris was something special.
Johnson a general.
Starc will end up somewhere near the top.
Patto needs to stay on the park.
 
I regard Ryan Harris as the second best Australian pace bowler I've seen, behind McGrath, and I've been watching since 1993. I rated him that highly, even higher than Gillespie or Johnson even though they took many more wickets.

If only his body had allowed him a better run at it.

For sheer destructiveness, Johnson in the '13/14 Ashes was superlative though and the best individual series by a pace bowler I've seen, I reckon. His following series against South Africa was scarcely less scary too.
 
May 5, 2016
43,465
48,500
AFL Club
Geelong
Each player brings something unique to the table.

McGrath is a lock and one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time.
Lee is an enforcer and someone who could bowl tight.
Harris was something special.
Johnson a general.
Starc will end up somewhere near the top.
Patto needs to stay on the park.

Lee played 26 series. In only 6 of them did he maintain an economy rate below 3..... and 5 of those 6: his economy rate was at least 2.9.

Underrated bowler but tight isn’t a word I’d use to describe him
 
I'd also add that when I saw James Pattinson make his Test debut, I thought Australia had uncovered its next great. As in generational great sort of level.

His body has let him down severely as well though, and I'm no longer sure he will ever be the bowler he promised to be.

But if anyone does recall his debut against the Kiwis - wow.
 
Nothing will ever beat the days when Mcgrath and Lee were in full flight, unbelievable players at their peak and we'll never see anything like it again.

You see at least one better bowler than Lee in pretty much every Test match played these days
 

workhorse

Premiership Player
Nov 13, 2006
4,329
3,194
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
Boston Celtics
I'd also add that when I saw James Pattinson make his Test debut, I thought Australia had uncovered its next great. As in generational great sort of level.

His body has let him down severely as well though, and I'm no longer he will ever be the bowler he promised to be.

But if anyone does recall his debut against the Kiwis - wow.

Great point. His average is still a very good 26.5 but I think the ship has well and truly sailed on him being an all-time great. That first summer was awesome stuff. Bowled fast, aggressive and with swing. 4 games, 25 wickets at 18.12 Ave and 32.6 S/R. Never forget being at Boxing Day Test Day 2 with him and Sehwag battling and he eventually cleaned up Sehwag with a beauty.
 

Lebbo73

Brownlow Medallist
Oct 20, 2014
18,276
19,361
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Liverpool
McGrath and Gillespie were the best opening combination by a mile. You don’t hear stories of those two having poor patches like Johnson did in his early days and they didn’t try to bowl to fast. Harris am absoloutely gun shame the SACA were too stupid to see how much ability and potential he had but hey when collosus cosgrove was the golden boy what do you expect
Johnson’s career was hamstrung by his mental demons. First it was his Mum not approving of the woman he married and then later on it was Phillip Hughes’ death that took the fire out of his belly. I knew it at the time and he said as much after his retirement. That and the deliberate flattening of wickets to stop his effectiveness. Both here and abroad.
 
Back