5 of the best death bowlers in World Cup history

The modernization of cricket has hurt the bowlers more than anyone else. Pitches are just mostly a 22-yard turf of flat deck that favour the batsmen more than anyone else.

In fact, some people have gone as far as claiming that cricket is a batsmen’s game—making aspiring young bowlers wonder whether they made the right decision to choose bowling.

And it is of no wonder that we don’t produce bowlers like the Waqars and Wasims anymore. However, of the little that is left in today’s time, very few of them could be labelled as good death bowlers.

While bowling in general is an art, bowling at the death is deception. Someone could be a great bowler, but could be handed the beating of his life in the final part of the innings, when batsmen don’t really care for technique and just focus on slogging.

Castrol Activ’s Actibonds protect the engine by clinging on and forming a protective coat, just like these 5 players, who protected their teams by performing well at the death with the match on the line.

However, teams with a great death bowler have always succeeded in major tournaments, and here are five such bowlers -

#1. Dwayne Bravo

This might be a strange inclusion in a list like this, but a valid one nonetheless. Not so long ago, West Indies were a team that were neck deep in mess. Bust-ups between players and the board meant that many of them refused to represent the Caribbean.

Things were looking bleak, but just under a couple of years later, West Indies were champions of the world in the shortest format of the game.

The win not only brought joy to the hearts of fans, but also wove a story of great inspiration. Every player did their part in that team. However, when it came to bowling in the death, Dwayne Bravo beat them all.

The West Indian bowled some phenomenal late spells that hindered the progress of batsmen, saving his team some valuable runs. His use of the slower ball was really well disguised as many batsmen fell prey to the bait.

#2. Mitchell Starc

There is perhaps no other bowler who made an impact as big as him at his debut World Cup. It is a rare sight to see a bowler winning the player of the tournament in a World Cup and Mitchell Starc gave us that moment of exclusivity when he was named one for his unreal performances in the World Cup of 2015.

In the tournament, he took 22 wickets at an average of 10.18 and an economy rate of 3.50 runs per over.

These numbers might seem like a fantasy story, but it wasn’t. Glenn Mcgrath was a great bowler—perhaps the greatest Australian fast bowler of all time—but not even he could boast of having the death-bowling skills that this young Australian has.

#3. Lasith Malinga

When Lasith Malinga came in to the fray, he was feared. Not for his pace, but for his very weird bowling action. Some even thought he was bowling illegally, but it was just a shout in the dark against something they couldn’t comprehend.

Sri Lanka were knocking at the door for a long time. In the 2007 World Cup, a rain-afflicted final saw them lose out to Australia. Then came the 2011 World Cup final, and they once again lost out.

However, despite not being able to lift the trophy, Malinga’s exceptional bowling—especially in death overs—made batsmen fear for their toes.

Malinga has this uncanny ability to bowl accurate yorkers—largely thanks to his round arm action—and bowling them in death overs is like laying a golden egg every single day.

#4. Waqar Younis

There was once a time when there wasn’t another bowler who could pick up wickets as easily as Waqar Younis. Whenever you switched on the TV after a Pakistan game, Younis almost always had 4-5 wickets to his name.

Such was his prowess that one could sense a feeling of surrender creeping into the batsman’s mind while playing him.

While Wasim Akram was the king of swing, Waqar Younis made a name for himself with fiery pace and cutters that were very difficult to deal with for the batsmen.

With the ball dropping well outside off, the batsman could be relaxed about his stump not getting shattered. If only.

The ball dropped on the seam and then jagged in, either getting the batsman out LBW or uprooting his stumps off the ground. With the older ball, he could produce great reverse swing and that is what made him one of the greatest death bowlers of all time.

#5. Wasim Akram

There is no explanation needed for his inclusion on this list. A list such as this without his name is an invalid list. People may argue whether he is the greatest fast bowler of all time with the likes of Richard Hadlee, Courtney Walsh and so on constantly giving him competition in that regard.

However, what can’t be argued is that he is the greatest left-arm pacer there was and there perhaps ever will be.

What made him special was his ability to generate swing in any given condition with any given ball. He was the king of swing—his reverse swinging deliveries in the death were utterly unplayable and made batsmen fall in a state of delirium.

Despite Waqar Younis’ injury barring him from the 1992 World Cup, Pakistan won it largely thanks to Akram’s exceptional bowling in every phase of the innings.