Pakistan
1 November 2006
Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, the first man to bowl at 100 mph, was banned for two years after testing positive for the banned substance nandrolone, though the ban was later overturned on appeal.
Australia v England
1933-02-23
In the fifth Test at Sydney in February 1933, Harold Larwood broke two bones in his left foot bowling Bodyline at top pace — and Douglas Jardine kept him on the field, refusing to let him leave until Don Bradman was dismissed. Hobbling, Larwood went out to bat at No. 4 and made 98. He never played another Test. The Bodyline tour's spearhead was effectively retired by the captain who had unleashed him.
Australia
1917-10-31
Albert 'Tibby' Cotter, the fastest bowler Australia had produced before the war and one of the Big Six who walked out in 1912, was killed in action at the Charge of Beersheba on 31 October 1917. He was 33. He had taken 89 wickets in 21 Tests.
Warwickshire
1914-05-15
Frank Field, the Warwickshire fast bowler who partnered Frank Foster in the championship-winning side of 1911 and continued to lead the county attack until the war, was one of the underrated workhorses of the early 1910s — taking over 100 wickets in three consecutive seasons.
England v Australia
1896-07-16
In the same Old Trafford Test that produced Ranjitsinhji's debut 154*, England's fast bowler Tom Richardson took 7 for 168 and 6 for 76 — match figures of 13 for 244 from 110 overs of fast bowling. He bowled unchanged for three hours on the final afternoon as Australia scrabbled to 125 for 7 chasing 125 to win. Australia held on by three wickets. Richardson's spell is one of the great lost-cause performances in Test history.
England v South Africa
1889-03-12
Charles Aubrey Smith was a tall fast-medium Sussex amateur with one of the strangest run-ups in cricket history — a sweeping curve that started from deep mid-off or even from behind the umpire and brought him in at the crease from an unexpected angle. WG Grace remarked it was 'rather startling when he suddenly appears at the bowling crease'. In March 1889, Smith captained the first English side to play a Test in South Africa, took 5/19 in the first innings of that Test, and remains the only player ever to captain England in his one and only Test appearance.
Sussex, Kent, Middlesex; All-England Eleven; United All-England Eleven
1863-09-01
Long before John Wisden's name appeared on the spine of an almanack, he was the most feared fast bowler of his generation. At five feet four he was the smallest fast bowler in first-class history; nicknamed the 'Little Wonder' by umpire Bob Thoms, he took more than 1,000 first-class wickets at 6.66 between 1846 and 1863. In 1850 at Lord's he took all ten North-South wickets in an innings — every one bowled, the only ten-bowled innings in first-class history.
Kent and All-England elevens
1855-06-01
Edgar Willsher of Rolvenden, Kent, emerged in the mid-1850s as one of the fastest left-arm roundarm bowlers in England, taking 1,393 first-class wickets across a career lasting until 1875. He was the central figure in the overarm bowling controversy of 1862, when he was repeatedly no-balled by umpire John Lillywhite at The Oval, but in the 1850s he was simply the most dangerous left-arm bowler in the country.