England’s Stuart Broad completed 500 Test wickets in the recently-concluded series against the West Indies. Soon after, his mate, mentor a...
England’s Stuart Broad completed 500 Test wickets in the recently-concluded series against the West Indies. Soon after, his mate, mentor and partner-in-crime James Anderson completed 600 Test wickets in the series against Pakistan. They have bowled together in 120 Test matches – inspiring each other; feeding off the energy or sometimes merely piggy-backing when the times have been tough. After all, no one is great all the time.
But that is exactly why the great bowling pairs have hunted together. Make no mistake, on their own, each one of them is great but together, they are pretty much unstoppable. If there is just one good bowler in the side, the batsmen bide their time and have the option of simply waiting out the spells till tiredness starts to creep in. But having two good bowlers means the pressure is always on and that feeling, on its own, can lead to errors from the batsmen.
Most great bowling pairs inspire respect. The batsmen know that there would be no let-up from the bowlers throughout the match and if one didn’t get you, almost always... the other would.
Here’s a very subjective look at some of the great post-war bowling pairs in Test cricket history:
Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller
Australia, 1946-56, 345 wickets in...
