Aussie aborigine Eddie Gilbert fastest bowler ever
Larry de Silva
Larrikin
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Aussie aborigine Eddie Gilbert fastest bowler ever
by Geoff Wijesinghe
http://www.dailynews.lk/2002/11/23/fea07.html
Who is the world's fastest bowler ever? This question is a favourite topic
of conversation when the cricketing fraternity gather for a chat, usually in
pubs and pavilions.
Comparisons are made between Harold Larwood, who bowled at a speed of 98
miles per hour in the bodyline series in Australia, Spofforth, Jack Gregory,
Ernie McCormick, Ray Lindwall, Dennis Lillie, Jeff Thompson, Gordon Rorke,
Keith Miller, Charlie Griffith, Wesley Hall, Michael Holding, as to who was
the fastest of them all.
Today, we have Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee, bowling at very high speeds,
vying with each other to wear the crown of being the world's fastest bowler
ever. In fact, Akhtar has been recorded as having delivered a ball at 100
mph.
But, since the speedometer reading was not official, it has not been
formally recognized by the ICC."Fast bowling produces a thrill and
excitement that are not lost on even those who face it", says Alan
McGilvray, the famous Australian broadcaster whom we featured in this column
last week.
In his book "The Game Goes On" as told to Norman Tasker, McGilvray says in
the chapter titled, "The Pace Parado", this connoisseur of cricket, who
played the game at the top level, in the star-studded pre-World War Two era,
states that fast bowler has been at center at cricket's greatest
controversies and at the heart of its greatest triumphs. It is in many ways
the essence of the game, for its gives the game character. It draws courage
from people; it distinguishes the very best from the rest.
Posing the question who is the best fast bowler? A question he has been
asked for the past 50 years, to which, his answer is always guarded. "I can
think of two or three I separate from the rest, but to choose between them
is difficult, for so many factors have to be taken into account. The pitches
on which they played, the captains they had, the batsmen to whom they bowled
and partners with whom they operated. These were all variables that make
definite judgments difficult".
"But, I have absolutely no doubt as to who was the fastest bowler I ever
saw, as distinct from the best. He stood less than five feet eight inches
tall, and weighed about nine stone, and by the athletic standards of today,
he was outright puny. But, he came at you with a blinding flash of arm and
let the ball go like a bullet and to play against him was to know real fear.
His name was Eddie Gilbert. He was an aboriginal who lived at the Barambah
aboriginal settlement, and in the four or five years he played for
Queensland, he won himself a reputation to make him a legend in his own
time.
Eddie Gilbert won immorality of a sort for dismissing Don Bradman for a duck
in a Shield Game in Brisbane. In fact, he had 2-0 before the New South Wales
innings was very old that year, capturing Wendell Bill for a duck also in a
spell that has been written into cricketing folklore. Eddie didn't do things
completely by the book".
"It was hard to tell whether he actually chucked or not, because he let the
ball go with such a fling of his right arm you got precious little sight of
it. But, certainly there was suspicion. He took a very short run for a
start, and his contemporaries could never work out how he could generate
such pace from so short a run without some sort of leverage from a bent man,
suddenly straightened".
"I played against Gilbert on the Sydney Cricket Ground one day when his
reputation had been well and truly entrenched. The first disconcerting thing
I noticed about him was that his hand was a sort of bright pink, and when
the ball flew from it here was a moment when the background of pink hand and
dark skin made it hard to pick up the ball. You had not time at all to get
hold of it anyway, and with that instant of confusion, it was almost
impossible.
"I faced one ball that hit the pitch and flew, and as the ball seared at my
face it was all I could do to get the shoulder of the bat to it. The ball
kept going, and I was caught at third man. I asked the fieldsman later just
where he had taken the catch, and he said he was right on the fence and took
the catch about a foot above the pickets".
"Had he not been there, it would have been six. Now, I did nothing to help
that ball on its way, so the sheer pace of it had taken it from its one
bounce on the pitch to the end of the ground on the full. That was the
fastest ball I ever faced, and if I've seen anybody hurl one down faster
since, I certainly haven't noticed".
The doyen of Australian broadcasting says the Jeff Thompsons and Charlie
Griffiths and the Wes Halls, all generated fearsome pace. But, outside of
Eddie Gilbert, one pace bowling performance stands out in his memory as the
swiftest of them all. And this was in a test match, where the prize and
pressure are the greatest.
When Len Hutton brought the England team to Australia in 1954, they were the
underdogs, with a number of untried players in their ranks. In the first
test, England suffered defeat by an innings and 154 runs.
"One of the glorious untried who had been included in the England party was
a strong-backed fast bowler named Frank Tyson, who amazed us all at the
start of the tour with his wild and woolly bowling.
There was no arguing his raw speed, but he seemed totally unable to get the
bowl in anything better than the rough direction where he wanted it to go,
and his 1-160 in the first test was hardly a surprise".
Tyson began his run at the fence and it was so long that he had no hope of
sustaining energy. After a couple of overs, he seemed spent by the time he
reached his bowling mark after each delivery.
His skipper Hutton worked on Tyson, a schoolmaster, and made a number of
changes. The run-up was shortened and his control improved. It had been
decided that he was the man to resurrect England. McGilvray states that
Tyson had been knocked out by a Lindwall bouncer in England's first innings
of the second test.
Whether he was inspired by that bouncer or not is hard to gauge. "But, he
certainly bowled with great zest to take 10 wickets in the match and square
the series for England". In the third test, his devastating spell of six for
16 in just 6.2 overs on the final morning to give him seven for 27 in the
innings, "was the festest spell of bowling I have seen in test cricket".
"I can recall discussing that spell with Neil Harvey and Keith Miller
afterwards. They were absolutely shell-shocked.
Each conceded it to be the fastest spell of genuine speed bowling they ever
had to confront. Those last eight wickets fell for 34 runs and typhoon Tyson
had emerged as the scourge of the summer".
Slippery Sam
> His name was Eddie Gilbert. He was an aboriginal who lived at the
> Barambah aboriginal settlement,
Ah Mathew Hayden territory, and back then, Joh's electorate.
Sam
Kalu Suntha
news:tyND9.31808$Sr6.8...@ozemail.com.au...
> Interesting analysis of some very fast bowlers.
>
> Larrikin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> ----------------------------------------
>
> Aussie aborigine Eddie Gilbert fastest bowler ever
> by Geoff Wijesinghe
>
> http://www.dailynews.lk/2002/11/23/fea07.html
>
Why you have to post DaliyLies from Sriwanka???
Don't reputed media in Australia not like Sriwanka???
Larry de Silva
"Col_" <C...@thebar.com> wrote in message
news:GbDfPbiZa=91Eb81tFVSDQ+loU=K...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 02:56:33 +1100, "Larry de Silva"
> <larryd...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> >Interesting analysis of some very fast bowlers.
> >
> >Larrikin
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> >----------------------------------------
> >
> >Aussie aborigine Eddie Gilbert fastest bowler ever
> >by Geoff Wijesinghe
> >
> >http://www.dailynews.lk/2002/11/23/fea07.html
>
>
You racist bastard. Piss off you pussy bloody bigot, go call someone else
racist names you jerk.
> Why not just put the URL in
> and not the total cut and paste of the web page. Most people have a
browser you
> know.
>
> --
>
> Col
>
> Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.
Arseholes like you have Swastikas tattooed on your forehead.
Larrikin