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Jeff Thomson
Jeffrey Robert Thomson (born 16 August 1950) is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975, which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time. He was a part of the Australian squad which finished as runners-up at the 1975 Cricket World Cup.
He was the opening partner of fellow fast bowler Dennis Lillee; their combination was one of the most fearsome in Test cricket history. Commenting on their bowling during the 1974–75 season, Wisden wrote: "... it was easy to believe they were the fastest pair ever to have coincided in a cricket team".
Another news reporter reported: "Dump a cricket ball in kerosene, light it on fire and launch it out of a cannon and then you'll get something like Jeff Thomson."
He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2016.
Thomson had an unusual but highly effective slinging delivery action that he learned from his father. In December 1975, after the second Test match against the West Indies at the WACA, he was timed with a release speed of 160.45 km/h using accurate, high-speed photo-sonic cameras. The study was carried out by Tom Penrose and Brian Blanksby of the University of Western Australia, and Daryl Foster of the Secondary Teachers' College in Perth. Measurements were also made of three other fast bowlers, Dennis Lillee, Andy Roberts and Michael Holding. Thomson's fastest delivery was the quickest, with Roberts coming in at second place with a delivery measured at 150.67 km/h. In 1979, Thomson won a fastest-bowling competition held by the Australian television station Channel 9, the same year in which he was banned from playing professional cricket due to striking a soccer referee. His maximum speed was measured at 147.9 km/h using the same method as employed during the 1975 study at the WACA. (Incidentally, a follow-up study in 1976 put him at 160.6 km/h – he was the fastest of those tested in both studies.) He also won the accuracy prize in the competition. Four decades on, Thomson mentioned in an episode of Cricket Legends that he had intentionally bowled full tosses for the competition in order to improve his score. There was a $5,000 cash prize for the fastest bowler, and there was an additional $5,000 for the most accurate bowler (three points for the middle stump, and one point for either leg stump or off stump); Thomson scooped the entire $10,000 prize pool (approximately $50,000 in 2022 terms).
Thomson recalled:
If you bowl a bouncer, it's gonna come off slower anyway. So I'm thinking this is gonna be takin', you know, candy from a baby. And I've put my beer down, I come out, and I bowled a few balls – and I was bowling full tosses and that, because I knew they'd be quick. So I won the 5 grand, I hit the stumps three times out of six or whatever [in fact, the bowlers had 8 deliveries in total], and I've cleaned up. And I've come back out, and Kerry said: "How did you go?". I said, "I won, boss"; he said, "good".
Many critics who saw Thomson bowl rate him as one of the fastest they had seen, including Richie Benaud, who considered him the fastest since Frank Tyson. Australian wicket-keeper Rod Marsh kept wicket to Thomson for most of his Test career and has claimed that Thomson bowled upwards of 180 km/h, an opinion also held by fellow Australians Ian Chappell and Ashley Mallett. However, the fastest measured delivery as of 2022 was Shoaib Akhtar's delivery in of 161.3 km/h at the 2003 World Cup, making such a claim extremely unlikely (if not impossible) to have actually occurred.[citation needed] Many of the players of the 1970s and 1980s generation also rate Thomson as the fastest they faced, including West Indian Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar. Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd regards Thomson as the fastest bowler he has ever seen, as does Michael Holding, himself an extremely fast bowler in his prime. Geoffrey Boycott rates Thomson joint-fastest with Holding, whilst Martin Crowe rated Thomson and Holding as the hardest bowlers to face, commenting: "Thomson was just a freak – a very unique action. You never really saw it."
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Jeff Thomson
Jeffrey Robert Thomson (born 16 August 1950) is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975, which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time. He was a part of the Australian squad which finished as runners-up at the 1975 Cricket World Cup.
He was the opening partner of fellow fast bowler Dennis Lillee; their combination was one of the most fearsome in Test cricket history. Commenting on their bowling during the 1974–75 season, Wisden wrote: "... it was easy to believe they were the fastest pair ever to have coincided in a cricket team".
Another news reporter reported: "Dump a cricket ball in kerosene, light it on fire and launch it out of a cannon and then you'll get something like Jeff Thomson."
He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2016.
Thomson had an unusual but highly effective slinging delivery action that he learned from his father. In December 1975, after the second Test match against the West Indies at the WACA, he was timed with a release speed of 160.45 km/h using accurate, high-speed photo-sonic cameras. The study was carried out by Tom Penrose and Brian Blanksby of the University of Western Australia, and Daryl Foster of the Secondary Teachers' College in Perth. Measurements were also made of three other fast bowlers, Dennis Lillee, Andy Roberts and Michael Holding. Thomson's fastest delivery was the quickest, with Roberts coming in at second place with a delivery measured at 150.67 km/h. In 1979, Thomson won a fastest-bowling competition held by the Australian television station Channel 9, the same year in which he was banned from playing professional cricket due to striking a soccer referee. His maximum speed was measured at 147.9 km/h using the same method as employed during the 1975 study at the WACA. (Incidentally, a follow-up study in 1976 put him at 160.6 km/h – he was the fastest of those tested in both studies.) He also won the accuracy prize in the competition. Four decades on, Thomson mentioned in an episode of Cricket Legends that he had intentionally bowled full tosses for the competition in order to improve his score. There was a $5,000 cash prize for the fastest bowler, and there was an additional $5,000 for the most accurate bowler (three points for the middle stump, and one point for either leg stump or off stump); Thomson scooped the entire $10,000 prize pool (approximately $50,000 in 2022 terms).
Thomson recalled:
If you bowl a bouncer, it's gonna come off slower anyway. So I'm thinking this is gonna be takin', you know, candy from a baby. And I've put my beer down, I come out, and I bowled a few balls – and I was bowling full tosses and that, because I knew they'd be quick. So I won the 5 grand, I hit the stumps three times out of six or whatever [in fact, the bowlers had 8 deliveries in total], and I've cleaned up. And I've come back out, and Kerry said: "How did you go?". I said, "I won, boss"; he said, "good".
Many critics who saw Thomson bowl rate him as one of the fastest they had seen, including Richie Benaud, who considered him the fastest since Frank Tyson. Australian wicket-keeper Rod Marsh kept wicket to Thomson for most of his Test career and has claimed that Thomson bowled upwards of 180 km/h, an opinion also held by fellow Australians Ian Chappell and Ashley Mallett. However, the fastest measured delivery as of 2022 was Shoaib Akhtar's delivery in of 161.3 km/h at the 2003 World Cup, making such a claim extremely unlikely (if not impossible) to have actually occurred.[citation needed] Many of the players of the 1970s and 1980s generation also rate Thomson as the fastest they faced, including West Indian Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar. Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd regards Thomson as the fastest bowler he has ever seen, as does Michael Holding, himself an extremely fast bowler in his prime. Geoffrey Boycott rates Thomson joint-fastest with Holding, whilst Martin Crowe rated Thomson and Holding as the hardest bowlers to face, commenting: "Thomson was just a freak – a very unique action. You never really saw it."