[VIDEO] Jeff Thomson bowled in the high 150s (158, 159, 160kph) on a consistent basis

[Tusker]

Dread to think what he'd done to them in his pomp.

Thats an easy question to answer ... he toured Pakistan only once and got 2-3 wkts max in a 3 Test Series ... never toured India and IIRC played one or two tests each in SL and WI.

So had he been forced to play in these difficult tours he would have had a even shorter Test career.

 

[On_the_up]

Thats an easy question to answer ... he toured Pakistan only once and got 2-3 wkts max in a 3 Test Series ... never toured India and IIRC played one or two tests each in SL and WI.

So had he been forced to play in these difficult tours he would have had a even shorter Test career.

And Kohl would be struggling to get an average of double digits if he had to play in English conditions all his life.

This extrapolating the tangent approach works both ways.

 

[Tusker]

And Kohl would be struggling to get an average of double digits if he had to play in English conditions all his life.

This extrapolating the tangent approach works both ways.

Comparing 4 Prominent Test Playing Nations to One and claiming both to be same is just brilliant .... But I will still humor you .... Kohli is eager to go back and do well in England unlike Lillee.

 

[On_the_up]

Comparing 4 Prominent Test Playing Nations to One and claiming both to be same is just brilliant .... But I will still humor you .... Kohli is eager to go back and do well in England unlike Lillee.

Eagerness to play doesn't equate to quality.

Kaman Akmal is quite eager to play for Pakistan anywhere at the moment.

That footage was of a 50 year old (yes 50) from a bygone era against the so called modern gladiators and still made them look like chumps.

 

[Junaids]

Thats an easy question to answer ... he toured Pakistan only once and got 2-3 wkts max in a 3 Test Series ... never toured India and IIRC played one or two tests each in SL and WI.

So had he been forced to play in these difficult tours he would have had a even shorter Test career.

You're being pretty selective there.

Lillee's tour of Pakistan saw even the keeper Taslim Arif hit a double century. Imran Khan wrote about that in All Round View: the BCCP was terrified of Lillee and demanded grassless, bounceless, slow wickets.

Lillee never played in India, but Hadlee did, and he was similar but slower - and did well.

Even Lillee's Test in Sri Lanka was just before he retired, when his speed was down around 20K to the low 130's.

 

[Haz95]

Lillee was a 70s/80s bowler...automatically means he was a dinosaur who probably bowled 110/120kph, with effort deliveries of 130kph. Only in 90s was when cricket suddenly became professional and bowlers crossed 150kph, to think otherwise is purely 'oldies nostalgia' and quite frankly blasphemous.

 

[Tusker]

You're being pretty selective there.

Lillee's tour of Pakistan saw even the keeper Taslim Arif hit a double century. Imran Khan wrote about that in All Round View: the BCCP was terrified of Lillee and demanded grassless, bounceless, slow wickets.
.

So now you are going to tell us that pitches in Asia too were also green tops and fast and bouncy in your time except of course when Lillee visited?

 

[Tusker]

Eagerness to play doesn't equate to quality.
.

Where did I say that? But I guess doing the opposite proves he is a quality player I suppose going by your weird logic.

 

[On_the_up]

Where did I say that? But I guess doing the opposite proves he is a quality player I suppose going by your weird logic.

My weird logic is you don't tar every one pre a certain time period with the same brush by looking at a very tiny percentage of highlights of the era on Youtube.

Philander wouldn't come across as a great bowler from Youtube footage if he had been around in the 50s but the modern greats seem to struggle against him. It's not as simple as that.

 

[Tusker]

My weird logic is you don't tar every one pre a certain time period with the same brush by looking at a very tiny percentage of highlights of the era on Youtube.

Just to be clear ... so now we are back to discussing footage from discussing Performances in Countries and eagerness ( or lack of it ) in playing in certain countries ? If so what was the outcome of that discussion about playing very few matches in difficult conditions ?

Philander wouldn't come across as a great bowler from Youtube footage if he had been around in the 50s but the modern greats seem to struggle against him. It's not as simple as that.

Did I claim that Philander is a great bowler ? and what role does footage have in making bowlers look great ? You look fast if you are fast if you are slow you look slow whether its HD or whatever lower resolution.

 

[Robert]

Lillee never played in India, but Hadlee did, and he was similar but slower - and did well.

Only because those silly old batsmen like Gavaskar, Vengsarker, Azhar were rubbish. They had no techniques and couldn't hit for power.

Gavaskar didn't even wear a helmet, which shows you how slow Malcolm Marshall must have been.

Kapil even got out to Allan Lamb once, and spinners are quicker than him!

Basically everything before the nineties was amateur garbage.

 

[On_the_up]

Just to be clear ... so now we are back to discussing footage from discussing Performances in Countries and eagerness ( or lack of it ) in playing in certain countries ? If so what was the outcome of that discussion about playing very few matches in difficult conditions ?

Did I claim that Philander is a great bowler ? and what role does footage have in making bowlers look great ? You look fast if you are fast if you are slow you look slow whether its HD or whatever lower resolution.

Kohli (a modern giant) record in eng was in response to selectively looking at Lillie's record over 3 matches in Pak

The point with Philander example is you dont have to be fast to be good and difficult to face, so if the old bowlers look slow, they are not necessarily easy to play against.

The background to all this is your view that modern cricket is of a superior standard and the old legends got their reputation from a combination of myths and bigging up by the people of their time.

 

[Tusker]

Kohli (a modern giant) record in eng was in response to selectively looking at Lillie's record over 3 matches in Pak

Not just Pakistan but SL, IND and WI . So its no longer selective when more than half of the then Cricket worlds Test playing nations. If kohli was succesfull at only 2 away countries we would never have heard the end of it.

The point with Philander example is you dont have to be fast to be good and difficult to face, so if the old bowlers look slow, they are not necessarily easy to play against.

Philander is SLOW compared to modern standards .... he is consistently bowling around 128-132K range and soo naggingly accurate. This would be the top range for fast bowlers from before the 60s and that too only a select few.

Unless ofcourse you think Bedser, Statham, Bowes, Tate etc were bowling at much higher speeds.

The background to all this is your view that modern cricket is of a superior standard and the old legends got their reputation from a combination of myths and bigging up by the people of their time.

If you don't agree with that then why not tell us in pure technical terms why Jack Hobbs technique is soo great as is claimed by many a (non-youtube) expert that voted him as one of the just 5 cricketers of the entire 20th Century ? Plenty of footage of him on youtube.

 

[Romali_rotti]

Thompson wouldve been the quickest in his time however he was no where in the league of Shoib or Lee, he was an inferior athlete, less stronger and did not have modern day sports science available to him back then... Lol wasn't Imran timed as one of the quickest bowlers in the speed competition at 137 clicks in the late 70s ?

 

[Bhaijaan]

Looking at the videos alone you could easily tell Thommo was clocking well above 165 kph. Frightening bowler.

 

[Buffet]

Looking at the videos alone you could easily tell Thommo was clocking well above 165 kph. Frightening bowler.

I recon, it's more like above 170 kph.

 

[JattMaula]

He looks like 125kph bowler. But he bowled in old times. When cricket was pure and frankly better so he is fastest ever.

 

[Sirris]

Looking at the videos alone you could easily tell Thommo was clocking well above 165 kph. Frightening bowler.

You can't judge a ball speed with naked eye especially by looking at an old video. The specific'of the camera and video frame can mess it up. Or do you think when watching some old Chaplin videos that back in the say the people used to walk faster?

 

[Bhaijaan]

You can't judge a ball speed with naked eye especially by looking at an old video. The specific'of the camera and video frame can mess it up. Or do you think when watching some old Chaplin videos that back in the say the people used to walk faster?

I have watched the 100 mph deliveries by Shabby and Lee. Batsmen played hem with ease. The one wih which Thommo cleaned up one of the greatest ODI batsmen ever was easily 165-175koh category delivery. Phenomenal release.

 

[Junaids]

You can't judge a ball speed with naked eye especially by looking at an old video. The specific'of the camera and video frame can mess it up. Or do you think when watching some old Chaplin videos that back in the say the people used to walk faster?

Thommo was measured in matches at 159K and 160K with 500 frame per second cameras.

Shoaib and Lee were never measured on anything more sensitive than 25 frame per second film.

The Thommo measurements were 20 times more precise than current measurement.

 

[Cric1234]

Thompson wasn't a great bowler but he was quick he could bowl close to 100mph here is the proof compared to Shoaibs quickest ever delivery:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dD5GaX8VqgY

 

[Railu Katta]

Definitely not a 160k bowler. I would guess 145-155 max.

 

[Cric1234]

Definitely not a 160k bowler. I would guess 145-155 max.

At his peak he was a 160-65kph bowler on pacy wickets especially below peak 145-155kph not that it makes a lot of difference as there's been better bowlers with better averages who are medium pace compared to the fastest ever.

 

[Buffet]

At his peak he was a 160-65kph bowler on pacy wickets

Check out the fastest pitchers throw ,which is a more competitive, and they are actually throwing and not bowling.

 

[Junaids]

Check out the fastest pitchers throw ,which is a more competitive, and they are actually throwing and not bowling.

No, baseball pitchers are slower than the fastest possible express bowlers: they have no run up, no momentum and no follow through.

 

[Junaids]

Definitely not a 160k bowler. I would guess 145-155 max.

Thommo’s speed was measured with 500 frame per second Photo-sonics cameras which are still the gold standard: they are twenty times more accurate than modern TV cameras.

 

[Buffet]

No, baseball pitchers are slower than the fastest possible express bowlers: they have no run up, no momentum and no follow through.

Any kid can always throw faster than they can bowl. That's not the point. Bowling is much slower than throwing. You can try it yourself. I have tried and clocked it myself.

 

[Tusker]

No, baseball pitchers are slower than the fastest possible express bowlers: they have no run up, no momentum and no follow through.

There is a reason why chuckling is a big no-no in cricket otherwise it wouldn't be such a big deal. It's an absolute no brainer that throwing generates lot more speed. Its astounding that you are even arguing this point despite being proven wrong in more than one way.

 

[kingusama92]

No, baseball pitchers are slower than the fastest possible express bowlers: they have no run up, no momentum and no follow through.

Chucking with a run up > chucking with no run up > express bowling

 

[Shutdown Corner]

I'm sorry but Thomson looks slike a trundler to me. Its just that batsmen couldn't bat back then, barring the odd guys like Viv, Sunny, and maybe a handful of others. Every bowler today from Kagiso Rabada to Lahiru Kumara would average under 25 if they got to bowl to those clumsy clowns with those cardboard bats on those wickets.

 

[Rightarmfast]

The thing is, Thommo used to bowl in an era where they had least protective gears. Bowling speed was often measured by the batsmen based on the bounce and the probability of it hitting their body. Thats a standard human response. The reason people could handle Akhtar and Lee at ease was because they werent scared of getting hit.

I dont think its possible for someone to be bowling 160 consistently. I surely think Thommo would have hit 155-160, however on an average he would have been 145-155 bowler.

 

[GrandMaster]

Looking at this video, he looks like 140-145ish.

 

[squarecut]

Jeff Thomson was the quickest bowler of his era. Other quick bowlers of his era were Andy Roberts, Denis Lillee and Michael Holding and he was quicker than them all. I recall that all these pacers were clocked during 1975-76 test series between Australia and West Indies. Thomson was found to be the quickest followed by Andy Roberts and then Lillee. Thomson's quickest delivery as measured then was 99.7 mph. If I recall the pace of others correctly then Andy Roberts was around 96mph and Michael Holding at 92 mph. So Jeff Thomson was way quicker than others.

Just because some young cricket fans have only read about him and have not lived through the era of Thomson does not make him slower than Shoaib Akhtar etc.

 

[squarecut]

Jeff Thomson ran in slowly and his run up looked like that of a trundler but then he unleashed fiery pace at the end of the delivery stride. That way he had one of the most deceptive run ups of a pacer.

 

[squarecut]

If people here state that an older generation bowler like Thomson was just fast medium then Imran Khan, who was measured as slower than Thomson in 1979 must be considered as military medium.

 

[Rightarmfast]

Jeff Thomson was the quickest bowler of his era. Other quick bowlers of his era were Andy Roberts, Denis Lillee and Michael Holding and he was quicker than them all. I recall that all these pacers were clocked during 1975-76 test series between Australia and West Indies. Thomson was found to be the quickest followed by Andy Roberts and then Lillee. Thomson's quickest delivery as measured then was 99.7 mph. If I recall the pace of others correctly then Andy Roberts was around 96mph and Michael Holding at 92 mph. So Jeff Thomson was way quicker than others.

Just because some young cricket fans have only read about him and have not lived through the era of Thomson does not make him slower than Shoaib Akhtar etc.

Have read and seen studied enough about the bowlers of the past. We used to listen to so many stories. Before the speed guns were introduced, the same people also used to hype Glenn Mcgrath for being fast. He was termed 'Right Arm Fast' btw for a large part of his career before speed guns came into play. After the speed gun came into use, we could see that all these so called aussie, english bowlers were of the same pace as others.

Please dont use that logic. People can say a lot of things, but its humanly not possible to bowl at 170 and no ways was Thommo bowling quicker than Akhtar!

 

[Titan24]

Some deliveries were quick but max 145-150 kph. He uprooted the stumps only once while Akhtar and Lee used to literally break the stumps more often than not.

 

[squarecut]

No one is telling that Thomson was measured at 170 kmph. But he was measured at over 99 mph (around 159 kmph). Technologically 1970s was not quite dark ages. It was possible to measure speed even then.

 

[Junaids]

There is a reason why chuckling is a big no-no in cricket otherwise it wouldn't be such a big deal. It's an absolute no brainer that throwing generates lot more speed. Its astounding that you are even arguing this point despite being proven wrong in more than one way.

Yes and no.

Over time, you have made me review some of my opinions.

I now believe that Sylvester Clarke only reached 163K with the aid of chucking.

Far more controversially, I now believe that my fellow Lancastrian - England’s all-time second best fast bowler - Brian Statham was only measured at 142K because he chucked.

Yes, throwing allows greater velocity than a straight arm.

But we need to return to physics, specifically Newton’s Second Law of Motion.

All a baseball pitcher has is the throw. He has zero momentum: no run-up, no leap in the delivery stride, no follow-through.

And that’s why baseball pitchers have never been quicker than the quickest express bowlers.

 

[Junaids]

No one is telling that Thomson was measured at 170 kmph. But he was measured at over 99 mph (around 159 kmph). Technologically 1970s was not quite dark ages. It was possible to measure speed even then.

I accept what you say about Thommo, but need to address your technology point.

The only advantage of modern digital technology - and Shoaib was timed on ANALOGUE footage, not digital - is easier storage, which is why most old TV shows were wiped years ago.

But it still costs a fortune today to lease the 500 frames per second Photo-Sonics cameras which measured Thommo at 160.6 and Roberts at 159.4 and Lillee at 155k.

Because modern TV cameras are designed to be relatively affordable, so the precision is reduced to 25 frames per second. Whereas the 1975 and 1976 testing was done in-match using much more precise but expensive equipment.

Which is why every time you see a speed measurement on the TV pictures - which never matches the speed on other sites anyway - you need to remind yourself “these cameras are manufactured to a standard 20 times less precise than the cameras used forty years ago”.

 

[Tusker]

Yes and no.

Over time, you have made me review some of my opinions.

I thought so too but unfortunately the more I read your recent posts the more I feel it was all a wasted effort . The rest of your post is evidence ...

I now believe that Sylvester Clarke only reached 163K with the aid of chucking.

Far more controversially, I now believe that my fellow Lancastrian - England’s all-time second best fast bowler - Brian Statham was only measured at 142K because he chucked.

Both never ever came close to those speeds ... forget about 163K.

What will it take for you to accept that ? Just merely watching the 2 bowl will tell you that.

Yes, throwing allows greater velocity than a straight arm.

But we need to return to physics, specifically Newton’s Second Law of Motion.

All a baseball pitcher has is the throw. He has zero momentum: no run-up, no leap in the delivery stride, no follow-through.

And that’s why baseball pitchers have never been quicker than the quickest express bowlers.

The last line is a categorically false statement. A simple Google search will resolve that. Therefore the previous line ( about momentum ) is also not correct.

 

[Junaids]

I thought so too but unfortunately the more I read your recent posts the more I feel it was all a wasted effort . The rest of your post is evidence ...

I'm going to take to task your flawed statements one by one here.

1. "Sylvester Clarke was never measured at 163K and Brian Statham was never measured at 142K"

Where do you get this from?

It's a matter of fact that Brian Statham was measured at the New Zealand Aeronautical College in Wellington in 1955 to bowl at 87 mph (140.03 KM/H). Using technology which was used to guide missiles!

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/86029.html

I admit, I remembered it as 2K faster than it actually was.

As for Sylvester Clarke, the Transvaal Police measured him during the 1983 West Indies Rebel Tour at a fastest delivery of 101 mph (163K) and a slowest delivery of 98 mph (158K).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Clarke

2. "Baseball pitchers are always faster than the fastest cricket bowlers"

Really?"

For the record, these are the fastest baseball pitches ever measured up to the year 2011:

102 mph seven times
102.2
102.6
103.4
104.8
105.1
106 - by Aroldis Chapman in 2010
107.6 measured in the year 1946
108.1 by Nolan Ryan in the year 1974

In other words, only fifteen baseball deliveries IN HISTORY have been measured as more than 1% (or 1 mph) faster than Sylvester Clarke's world record fastest measured delivery of 163K - and only 5 were were faster beyond the margin of error of the technology - and 2 of those 5 were measured in 1946 and 1974 using older technology.

The idea that baseball pitches are faster than express cricket deliveries is just a lie that people accept unthinkingly.

In reality, I'd bet my house that Thommo bowled faster deliveries than the 160.6K delivery which was measured with a 500 frame per second camera in 1975-76 at the WACA.

And I'd also bet my house that on the 1997-98 Pakistan tour of South Africa there were multiple deliveries bowled by Shoaib Akhtar which were faster than his supposed "record" of 161.3K to Nick Knight at Cape Town in the 2003 World Cup - which was recorded on inferior 25 frame per second film.

Shoaib really might have been marginally faster than Thommo - we will never know.

But I'm pretty sure that both bowled spells of multiple 160-165K deliveries in their careers - which would place them ahead of any baseball pitchers. Ever.

 

[CricketAnalyst]

Only because those silly old batsmen like Gavaskar, Vengsarker, Azhar were rubbish. They had no techniques and couldn't hit for power.

Gavaskar didn't even wear a helmet, which shows you how slow Malcolm Marshall must have been.

Kapil even got out to Allan Lamb once, and spinners are quicker than him!

Basically everything before the nineties was amateur garbage.

Kapil Dev's catch in 1983 WC was considered famous for a long time. In modern cricket if you can't make that 9 times out of 10 you won't even play in a top side. Standards have improved immensely.

 

[Junaids]

Kapil Dev's catch in 1983 WC was considered famous for a long time. In modern cricket if you can't make that 9 times out of 10 you won't even play in a top side. Standards have improved immensely.

No offence, but that wasn't what shocked us.

It's true that the general standard of fielding was far lower in the 1970s and early 1980's. Absolutely true.

But there were already superb fielders - the recently deceased Colin Bland was the best of the lot - ever. And people like Clive Lloyd and Derek Randall were amazingly good fielders.

The thing is, India was just emerging from a period in which they were an amateurish Test-specialist side, whose success was entirely based on the batting of Gavaskar and Viswanath and the spin of the utterly unfit and unable to field Prasanna / Chandrasekhar / Bedi / Venkat.

So to see a high class fast-medium bowler like Kapil Dev had already shocked us. To then see India exhibit mobility and agility in the field was an even bigger shock.

That's why Kapil Dev's catch was such a shock.

 

[Majid Khan]

It is difficult and virtually impossible to compare exact speeds of fast bowlers from different eras to conclude who is faster - but there is no doubt that genuinely fast bowlers , and by that I mean genuine quicks (not Staurt Broad or Ishant Sharma types ) who had it in them to bowl spells consistently at or around 150kph + range are far and few between.

And of all the cricket I've seen in the last three decades or so, only a handful of fast bowlers had that kind of venom - most recently in 2000s, you could mention Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Shane Bond,

Previously in the 90s era, there was Waqar Younis / Alan Donald / Wasim Akram (who maybe was not always bowling at full throttle, but when he did he could bowl ferociously quick), Mohammed Zahid (briefly), Ian Bishop (before injury), and then in previous eras the likes of Jeff Thomson, Lillee, Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Imran Khan for a couple of years in early 80s before injury, these guys were express !

It's difficult to say who was faster than who, but what you can safely say is that they were all real quicks --- getting the odd ball to 91mph as you see these day like a Mohammed Amir or Stuart Broad, even Javagal Srinath could do that back in the day, but was he an out and out fast bowler ? fast medium or medium fast maybe, not fast.

Today those bowlers who would have been medium fast or fast medium in previous eras are being ranked as fast, it's amusing to say the least.

 

[Majid Khan]

Talking about pure speed, maybe the fastest spell of bowling I've seen was in this game in Natwest ODI series match between Pakistan and Australia, 2001 -- if anyone remembers :
http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/61088/scorecard/66275/australia-vs-pakistan-2nd-match

Not going to mention his name, but suffice to say it wasn't Brett Lee , he didn't finish the game and left the ground vomiting blood.

I remember watching this game live on Sky Sports when suddenly after four or five consecutive high speed readings (97-99mph), the speed readings on TV were no longer being displayed for that spell, with most of the deliveries looking quicker than the high 90s recorded ones if anything. Reports from the ground were that the speed gun was displaying 100mph and might have broke or was intentionally switched off (possibly conspiracy? ) - I remember this as it was the very first thread that I came across when joining Pakpassion that day in 2001, and there was a chap by the name of Eddie Smith (who was a regular on PP back then, a true fast bowling and speed enthusiast who also reported on CricInfo, anyone remember him ? ) who also mentioned he heard similar accounts about the fast bowling speeds from one guy in that game.

 

[PerfectionPersonified]

[MENTION=95961]best[/MENTION] 155 may be just may be..the deliveries on the eye looks 135 to 145 at best

 

[Tusker]

I'm going to take to task your flawed statements one by one here.

1. "Sylvester Clarke was never measured at 163K and Brian Statham was never measured at 142K"

Where do you get this from?

It's a matter of fact that Brian Statham was measured at the New Zealand Aeronautical College in Wellington in 1955 to bowl at 87 mph (140.03 KM/H). Using technology which was used to guide missiles!

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/86029.html

I admit, I remembered it as 2K faster than it actually was.

As for Sylvester Clarke, the Transvaal Police measured him during the 1983 West Indies Rebel Tour at a fastest delivery of 101 mph (163K) and a slowest delivery of 98 mph (158K).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Clarke

I get that by JUST looking at the guy bowl --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA1L_cDJEEI

If that looks like anywhere remotely close to 160Ks to you then Iam sorry but there cannot be a sensible discussion that can be had between us. And yes you can pick any of the videos on YT of Clarke bowling.

We will get to Statham later. But I do not trust anything written about Statham ... sorry I have been on this planet long enough to know what to trust and believe. Any debate on Statham is going to have to be based on available footage that we both can watch.

2. "Baseball pitchers are always faster than the fastest cricket bowlers"

Really?"

For the record, these are the fastest baseball pitches ever measured up to the year 2011:

102 mph seven times
102.2
102.6
103.4
104.8
105.1
106 - by Aroldis Chapman in 2010
107.6 measured in the year 1946
108.1 by Nolan Ryan in the year 1974

In other words, only fifteen baseball deliveries IN HISTORY have been measured as more than 1% (or 1 mph) faster than Sylvester Clarke's world record fastest measured delivery of 163K - and only 5 were were faster beyond the margin of error of the technology - and 2 of those 5 were measured in 1946 and 1974 using older technology.

The idea that baseball pitches are faster than express cricket deliveries is just a lie that people accept unthinkingly.

You need to realize that the measured speed of Clarke that you talk about is not really taken seriously by any independent speed measuring authority. I simply will not accept that especially when we have footage of Clarke bowling (see above ) that we can see for ourselves. It tells a completely different story. Again if you think that footage of Clarke that I posted above shows him bowling at high speeds then there cannot be a honest serious discussion that is possible here.

Anyhow if we take Shoaibs record of 100.1 mph then there will be a few more but lets pretend that there are is only those 15 or so base ball pitches that are faster than crickets top speeds. That is quite a lot actually. There is only 4-5 in cricket that have touched 160Ks but whereas in Baseball that number is much much higher.

But in order to get a true reading we need to compare avg speeds in Cricket vs Baseball which unfortunately is not possible.

In reality, I'd bet my house that Thommo bowled faster deliveries than the 160.6K delivery which was measured with a 500 frame per second camera in 1975-76 at the WACA.

And I'd also bet my house that on the 1997-98 Pakistan tour of South Africa there were multiple deliveries bowled by Shoaib Akhtar which were faster than his supposed "record" of 161.3K to Nick Knight at Cape Town in the 2003 World Cup - which was recorded on inferior 25 frame per second film.

Shoaib really might have been marginally faster than Thommo - we will never know.

But I'm pretty sure that both bowled spells of multiple 160-165K deliveries in their careers - which would place them ahead of any baseball pitchers. Ever.

You would likely lose your house. There is plenty of footage from 1974/75 Ashes series on YT ... feel free to pick the fastest and post it here.