Top 5 World Cup specialists: Part 1 - Bowlers
‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ While this adage is applicable to almost any situation in life (and across genders), in the cricketing context, the greatest ‘hour’ comes once in every four years when the top teams in the world converge to battle it out to determine the greatest among them all – at least till the next time the epoch event occurs. True to the saying, several men have indeed stepped up to the occasion: some were excellent exponents of the game who stretched the limits of the high levels they themselves set on lesser platforms, while others shone in a different light altogether when performing on the biggest stage of cricket.The following slideshow is the Part 1 of a dual series dedicated to identifying these World Cup (WC) specialists, with the current instalment focusing on bowlers who have upped the ante when their country needed it the most.The selection is made on the basis of a quantitative methodology, the key criteria of which are as follows:Minimum qualification: 35 wickets in WCsScore: This has been calculated by multiplying the three essential parameters a bowler is assessed upon – Average, Economy Rate (ER) and Strike Rate (SR). For example, a bowler with an average of 20, an ER of 4, and an SR of 40 will have a score of 20 x 4 x 40 = 3200. As with most statistics associated with bowling, lower the score, better is the performance.Greater the difference between their career scores and the WC scores, the higher will the bowler feature on this list.Do note that the focus is not on absolute WC performances, but relative to the bowler’s overall career, which is why the highest wicket-taker in the World Cups barely makes it to this list, and numbers two (Muttiah Muralitharan just misses out) and three (Wasim Akram’s WC performance actually dips slightly below his overall) do not feature at all. Read on, and take a call for yourself if statistics do paint the true picture or not.
#5 Glenn McGrath
The highest wicket-taker in the history of the 50-over World Cup, Glenn McGrath just about makes it to this list, simply because he was almost as good throughout the rest of his One Day International (ODI) career. Covering four WCs from 1996 – 2007 in his long stride, the lanky pacer racked up 71 wickets at an astounding average and an ER of 18.19 and 3.96 respectively. After a forgetful 1996 WC, McGrath stamped his authority over the 1999 edition in England, picking 18 wickets to finish a touch behind compatriot Shane Warne and Kiwi Geoff Allott (both with 20 wickets). While he strung together several consistent performances, the 5-14 against West Indies at Manchester, which included castling Brian Lara with a peach of a delivery, was the most memorable.
The Pigeon went from strength to strength in his next two WCs, picking up 21 and 26 wickets in the 2003 and 2007 instalments respectively, winning the Player-of-the-Tournament award in the latter, which was also his final international appearance for Australia.
McGrath’s 7-15 against minnows Namibia in the 2003 edition remains the best bowling figures in a WC till date, which he followed up with a number of clinical spells, including a 3-wicket haul against India in the final to ease the Aussies towards their second WC on the trot.
Four years later, showing no signs of any dip in form, usually associated with players on the fringe of retirement, McGrath returned one final time to spur the Aussies onto a hat-trick of WC triumphs. The Daily Telegraph hailed his longevity with the quote:
‘He was branded too old and too hittable. But if someone told Glenn McGrath this was a World Cup too far, he didn't hear them.’
An amazing feature of McGrath’s performance in the 2007 Cup, held in the West Indies, was his unwavering consistency in terms of picking wickets: he did not go wicket-less in any game and picked up three-wicket hauls in 6 out of the 11 matches played.
The Aussies missed him in 2011, and, in their quest for the 2015 WC, will be desperately hoping for someone to step into those large shoes and replicate, to some extent, the iron-hold he had on the marquee tournament in cricket.
| Matches | Wickets | Average | ER | SR | Score | Score Differential | |
| Overall | 250 | 381 | 22.02 | 3.88 | 34.0 | 2904.9 | 924.0 |
| WC | 39 | 71 | 18.19 | 3.96 | 27.5 | 1980.9 |