365 Days Cricket - Dennis Lillee

Everyone lucky enough to see Dennis Lillee bowl won't forget the view. He was the embodiment of the ideal fast bowler. His exact, smooth run-up to the wicket, perfect balance when delivering the cricket ball and control over where the ball landed on the wicket were all A1. The truth is when he first burst on the scene in early 1970s batsmen didn’t find out how to play him.

Nevertheless, Dennis Lillee had serious injury issues and was kept out of test cricket for the greatest part of two years with a stress fracture of the back. When he came back to trounce England in 1974, he was back to his best. Between 1974 and 1976 Dennis Lillee and other Australian fast bowler Jeff Thomson laid waste to batsmen over the world. For a short period of time Australia had become the greatest team on the planet, mostly because of this fiery pair of fast bowlers.

Jeff Thomson never reached such Olympian heights again but Dennis Lillee stayed the world’s number 1 fast bowler for the rest of the 1970s. When his career ended in 1983 he had taken a then world record 355 test wickets in only 70 test matches.

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