On this day in 1949, Dennis Lillee was born. The Australian pacer was known to be one of the best pacers of his time. For a long time, he remained Australia’s best bowler. The right-arm pacer emerged as a unique bowler who could operate at a great pace and trouble the batters. He was a revolutionary bowler who transformed fast bowling forever. Dennis was the leading wicket taker for Australia in Tests for a long time.
In the 1970s, a revolution took place in bowling and some of the greatest pacers like Geoff Thomson, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Malcolm Marshall, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Bob Willis, Imran Khan, Sarfraz Nawaz, and others emerged. Most of them were quicker than their predecessors and had a longer career with a good sample size.
Dennis started the trend of having a decent career with enough wickets to one’s name and terrify the batters with their pace. For instance, he and Geoff Thomson wreaked havoc against the West Indies at home in 1975. It forced the visiting side to rethink their game. To claim it revolutionized the sport forever wouldn’t be wrong. Lillee made the life of batters difficult. When he was bowling, one didn’t want to be a batter.
There is no substitute to raw pace in cricket. But Dennis used to consistently deliver in good lengths and damage the confidence of the batters. Later in his career, Lillee developed a genuine outswinger and was still effective. With age, his pace went down gradually, but he applied himself with new skills. He turned out to be an inspiration for several younger players including Sachin Tendulkar.
Lillee played 70 Tests and 63 ODIs for Australia. He claimed 355 and 103 wickets in either format. In the longer format, he averaged 23.9 with the ball. His average of 20.8 in ODIs is one of the best for a bowler with a minimum of 100 wickets in the format. Even in first class and List A cricket, he bowled well and terrified the batters. In some instances, Dennis was a bit handy as a batter.
Also read: Former England wicketkeeper-batter Bob Taylor was born in 1941