Is Rabada the greatest home bowler in Test history?
Notes on KL Rahul's versatility, wobble ball and India's batting
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Rabada’s home (JK)
The fastest wicket-taker in the history of Tests is Kagiso Rabada. When you watch him it really is a blur of batters coming and going. There are usually runs, but it’s hard to tally them up with batters leaving so fast.
In terms of pure numbers, he has the greatest strike rate ever. Now, is he the best strike bowler ever, well, that is the larger question.
You don’t want to overreact to a day like he’s just had against India. But he has so many. He collects wickets like others never have. Not five-wicket hauls, but three and four like he’s bulk buying for the coming apocalypse.
Just for fun, shall we look at best strike rate compared to the worst.
Poor Ravi Shastri had to bowl two and a half times as much as Rabada to get a wicket. No wonder he was so happy to become a batter. I don’t just show Shastri to point out how funny this is, it’s also to show that some men get conditions that really help them at home, and others don’t.
Maybe it is better to point out Dan Vettori rather than Shastri, though. A man who should never have even visited New Zealand on holiday was forced to bowl there for a wicket per session. So again we can see that Rabada is the quickest ever, and that makes sense ofcourse, South Africa is a place where wickets fall fast.
Since 1990 it has the lowest average of any Test location outside of the one-off Ireland Test. While most teams are near 32, South Africa is 30.
Of course if you just look at quicks, it stretches real far.
They are seven runs a wicket better than on Indian pitches. So if you are a fast bowler, there is no doubt that being in South Africa a lost is a huge advantage.
And if you look at the home bowlers in our game's history, there is no doubt that Rabada is also the best here. Runs per over would slow him down, but when you average under 20 and take a wicket every five and a half overs, who the hell cares what your econ is.
Weird that James Anderson and R Ashwin get hit with biased pitches claims, and Rabada bowls on a bed of wet dreams and no one cares. Where is your Clouderson now? Shows you that even in being called overrated, South Africans are underrated.
And I want to focus on the other quickest strike bowlers in home conditions here. Because these three bowlers, Waqar Younis, Dale Steyn and Malcolm Marshall, are all attack the stumps skiddy bowlers. They obviously had other skills, but I don’t think it’s a surprise to see them all here.
I think what makes Rabada special is that he has the pace and energy to explode through batters on the stumps. But because of his size he can also get good bounce on his short ball making it hard to keep down. His most important natural ability would seem to be the bounce he gets that these other bowlers mentioned never had. But he also has the ability to move the balls both way laterally. So he has elements of tall bowlers and skiddy guys, which doesn’t even make sense. But it means on any wicket he has a skill that works.
By location he averages most in Asia - obs - but even then it’s a healthy 35. But his bowling works in the West Indies, Australia, plus England/New Zealand. This is something that travels, even if at his best, he’s at home.
So what about away when you look at strike rate?
He slips down to eighth on the list. Also, Steyn is first, suggesting that SA breeds great strike bowlers and not just these two doing that on friendly home wickets. South African wickets are a weird hybrid of Australian ones. West Indian, English and New Zealand. So perhaps that is part of it. To be successful at home, you need to be fast, but also good at flat and sometimes sluggish wickets. Far better than just the need for sideways movement that England/New Zealand needs, or tall guys in Australia.
This is Rabada home versus away.
On first glance, you are like, well he’s a home town hero. But he is still averaging less than 30 when travelling and still striking way better than normal bowlers ever do. He is good enough to be a great bowler for a nation on his away stats alone.
It’s just that at home, there is nothing you can do to stop him.
When we looked at home and away he took wickets at two balls better than next best. You look at home only and he’s almost an over better than Waqar Younis. He’s on an island alone.
What about just the best few bowlers, you can see he is better than Syd Barnes - who averaged 16. That is pretty damn sexy. And I figured that one of those bowlers was probably the best strike ever when considering the eras they played in.
But when I looked at strike rates by decade, Barnes had a really low era, so while he deserves his place, Rabada is striking faster than him in a tougher period. And while wickets go quicker now, but nowhere near quick enough to account for Rabada’s strike rate.
And in the top ten, present-day bowlers aren’t dominating. There are three current guys, with Steyn not that far away. So while era plays a part, we can say Rabada has earned his spot.
But contextually, is he the greatest strike bowler of all time. When I rate the numbers Fred Trueman was taking a wicket every 21.7 balls quicker than his era. But it is Waqar Younis who is still the greatest strike bowler ever. At worst though, I have Rabada as third.
This isn’t a home thing, this isn't a modern batters giving their wickets away situation, this is Kagiso Rabada taking wickets at a rate we’ve never seen before.
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