From: rgajendr@cisco.com (I. Rajeev Gajendran)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Re: bowling speed of Waqar and Wasim
Date: 8 Jan 1993 04:27:57 GMT
Organization: cisco Systems, Incorporated
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: stout.cisco.com

I was unable to restrain myself from posting, so here's 
my 2-cents' worth on ball speeds: 

1. I believe radar is the (only) PRACTICAL way to make the measurements. 
   You keep the gun pointed at the same location, and it should tell 
   you speed at the same point in the trajectory. Of course if you pack 
   up your gun and go away and do it again another day, there will 
   be a difference in where you are aiming it. Even if the bowler were 
   to bowl the same ball with the same speed you'd get a different result. 

2. From memory, I THINK Ian Botham, Bob Willis, Imran Khan, were all 
   clocked around 88-89 mph (142 kph). 

3. When clocked at flat-out fastest, Jeff Thom(p)son, Dennis Lillee, 
   Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Freddie Tru(e)man were all in the 
   range 90-100 mph (144 to 160 kph). I remember reading that Truman 
   was the fastest ever at 100mph but that sounds a bit fishy to me. 
   We'll never know if that was true, or the measurement was flawed. 

4. American baseball pitchers commonly throw fastballs in the same 
   range, 89 to 100 mph (eg Rob Dibble). The guys in the upper end of 
   that range are pretty much unplayable. There is a big difference 
   in reaction ability between 90 and 100 mph. I'm not saying they don't 
   get hit out of the park, they do, but they also get a lot of 
   strikeouts. The batter basically has to be lucky. 

5. American baseball pitchers also throw curveballs and sinkers and 
   split-finger fastballs and spitballs and all kinds of stuff which 
   basically move through the air just like a swing-bowler's delivery. 
   The seam is different, but the principle is the same - if the 
   ball's velocity is too high, it won't "move." The previous poster 
   was right about the Loughborough undergrad study, I read it or 
   an extract from it many years ago. (Couldn't make use of it :-)

6. To move from "facts" to pure speculation: maybe the physics dudes
   can help out. A radar gun measures total, or resultant velocity, 
   which has two components: vertical and horizontal. The ball is 
   moving towards the batsman and is also dropping towards the pitch. 
   Now, once it reaches the pitch and bounces, it will lose some 
   energy due to the bounce. Therefore, if your radar dun was pointed 
   at it, the total speed (resultant velocity) should be LESS. However, 
   if the angle at which it comes off the pitch is different than the 
   angle at which it hit the pitch, the horizontal and vertical 
   vectors could now be relatively quite different: if the ball stays 
   low (like a "shooter"), it could actually be reaching the batsman 
   faster and thus appear to have picked up speed "off the pitch." Of 
   course there are a lot of other variables like the angle of the seam 
   and what the batsman had for breakfast and so on, bu this seems 
   reasonable to me.

7. I have no doubt that I'll catch a lot of flak from all my other 
   acquaintances who are also wasting time reading r.s.c, but what 
   the hell!