Cricket / Andrew Hughes / 09 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee are often said to be the best fast bowlers of the early 21st Century. But one man deserves to be ranked alongside them. Andrew Hughes tells us more.

Those who watched the Champions Trophy semi-final between New Zealand and Pakistan witnessed a classic spell of fast bowling. In his opening six overs, Shane Bond produced an array of lightning-quick full deliveries, slower balls, leg cutters and vicious bouncers. He twice rattled Kamran Akmal on the gloves before unleashing a bumper that appeared to heading straight up Imran Nazir's left nostril until the batsman wisely got a bat in the way. His hostility with the new ball helped propel New Zealand into their first major final since 2000.

When you look at Bond's career stats, two things stand out. The first is that he is an exceptional strike bowler. In terms of bowling average and particularly strike rate, he ranks alongside Richard Hadlee as one of the two best bowlers in the history of New Zealand cricket. The other thing that strikes you is that he has played just 17 Test matches and 74 one-day games in an international career that began back in 2001.

It is a minor tragedy that cricket watchers have been denied the opportunity to see him in action for so much of those eight years. The genuinely quick fast bowler is always box office and Bond is an exciting player to watch. He runs in with an easy, athletic stride, appears to pause momentarily as he gathers himself and then fires the ball down the pitch with a whiplash delivery. Though he has added many subtleties to his craft, his trademark remains the rapid, in swinging yorker that has detonated the castle of many an unsuspecting batsmen.

Yet the very technique that propelled him to international recognition was placing enormous pressure on his body and eventually led to the stress fractures that threatened to end his career just when he seemed to be at the height of his powers. From May 2003, he played virtually no cricket for two years as he underwent the first of many attempts to repair and remodel both his body and his bowling action. It took months of hard work before he was able to resume his international career and then, cruelly, he suffered another injury and missed most of 2006.

Perhaps his injury ordeals were part of the reason why he decided in 2008 to join the rebel cricket league, the ICL. It is certainly hard to blame him for wanting to maximise his remaining earning potential and it is a pity that New Zealand Cricket, under pressure from the BCCI, cancelled his contract. At the time, it was thought to be the end of his international career and a sad end it would have been. Fortunately, the amnesty for ICL cricketers has enabled him to return to the international fold.

What could New Zealand have achieved if Bond had been ever-present these last eight years? We can only speculate, but whilst he could not have turned the Black Caps into world-beaters, his ability to conjure up wickets through sheer raw pace would have made them a much more threatening proposition in the field. It is not unreasonable to suggest that New Zealand would be one or two places higher in the ICC rankings if he had been available more often.

Nevertheless, the Shane Bond story is not quite over yet. At thirty-four, his battered body may not be able to withstand the rigours of international cricket for too much longer but he is a determined character, as he has demonstrated by making so many comebacks after so many horrendous injuries, and he will be desperate to make up for lost time. Perhaps another World Cup in 2011 might be out of the question, but he could well play a starring role in the Twenty20 World Cup next year. And while he is still in the game, cricket fans should take every chance to watch a man who deserves to be ranked alongside Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee as one of the best fast bowlers of the modern era.