Line and length

Cricket doyen Ali Bacher considers the best bowlers South Africa has produced in new book

- Bruce Dennill

Any list-based publication can be viewed as subjective, and in cricket, statistics can sometimes cloud the issue. What were your preferred ways of gauging greatness for this book?

Ali Bacher I’ve been passionate about cricket my whole life, so I know the history pretty well. South Africa’s first test match was in 1889 against England, and we lost quickly. All the way up to the 1940s, we didn’t have a great bowler. Since the 1950s, we’ve always had at least one great bowler. And since then, we’ve been a world power in cricket. I’ve been lucky. All of those bowlers – I’ve either played with or against them, or I’ve seen them in action. The best for me? Maybe Dale Steyn, because of where he came from. He grew up in Phalaborwa and went to high school in Tzaneen. He learned as he went, and became a great competitor.

For the book, I interviewed all of the living bowlers we included there, and I knew the guys who had passed personally, so I could work from that.

Some of our best bowlers have been standalone athletes; others have worked well in partnerships. How much difference does an effective partner make for a true strike bowler?