Awesome.

I modelled my whole action (languid run up) on him.

I thought I was a young Peter Martin, I wasn't.

I loved Peter Martin as a kid. Nick Speak used to run winter coaching sessions in Stockport, which I went to every year as a teenager. He used to bring along other Lancs players, one year it was Martin and Dexter Fitton. Then a couple of years later Speak passed the coaching clinic onto Steve Titchard who did it with Richard Green, both of them were big Wire fans. Titchard was a great bloke, really good with the kids, always hung around at lunchtimes where we used to badger him about what it was like to face various opening bowlers in country cricket (those were the days when there were loads of great fast bowlers around)

Titchard used to tell us that every batsman in the game would give the same answer to the question "whos the hardest bowler in the league to face"....its something I've seen correlated in a few players' autobiographies as well.

Who do you reckon it was.....?

wasim

Wayne Daniel?

Oh Lanky Lanky!!!!!!!

not been the same since Neil Fairbrother & Wasim Akram

Wayne Daniel was before Titchards time. Also he didn't have to face Wasim (other than I suppose in the nets) although Wasim is a good guess, when Shane Warne did his 50 best cricketers in the Times, he reckoned Waqar picked up half his wickets because of how good Wasim was at the other end.

But it wasn't either of those...

Give us a clue

Sylvester Clarke was generally reckoned to be the bowler most batsmen feared in the County Championship during the late 80's, but I'm guessing that's not the answer you're looking for ?

The type of people who enjoy watching grass grow.

ok.

Dont bother mate; I'm a few miles from Lords and it is bucketing down here at present.

he was respected rather than revered by fans, but rated by pros as the hardest of the lot to face (Atherton, Hussain etc have said the same as Titchard)

It's not Sylvester Clarke, again he was of the 80s rather than the 90s when Titchard was talking about.

Gus Fraser?

devon malcolm ?

Gladstone Small?

Whenever I batted, I always said I was John Crawley.

Tough one this, given Titchard didn't get International honours, you're looking at who was around the county scene at the time. Obviously clubs were limited to one overseas as well.

Caddick with that bounce off a length ? Malcolm for pure speed ?

Non English, I'd have gone Walsh or McGrath, nagging line, quick enough, on the spot and all that.

Mark Alleyne - Gloucestershire?

I'm pretty sure Steve played for Lancs against one of Steve Waugh's ashes sides which would bring Shane Warne, Merv Hughes (and a few that I've forgotten) into the equation. If i remember rightly, it was the only match Australia lost on the whole tour.

Derek Pringle?

All the top international fast bowlers in the 1990s played county cricket, Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Pollock, Streak, McGrath, Cairns.....Titchard faced them all, without playing a Test.

JWP got it, the answer was Courtney Walsh. Titchard used to say to us that openers in county cricket would work off the theory that if they saw off a fast bowlers first four overs his pace would start to drop off and the pressure would ease, and if he came back for a second or third spell he'd already be tired and his top speed would soon drop off. Walsh was the exception because he'd bowl 25 overs in a day, in three spells, and every ball was at top pace, because he was the best athlete in the game by far. Nobody has ever come close to bowling as fast for as long as Walsh, and hardly missing a game in his career through injury, he was a machine.

The other thing Titchard used to tell us about Walsh was when he was telling bowlers that they had to make the batsman play. Walsh never gave the batsman a ball he could leave alone, he bowled at the widest edge of the crease and angled it into the batsman, usually bouncing up to between chest and neck height. Because of the angle the batsman couldn't sway out of the line because it would follow him, and it was too low to duck, so he had to fend it away with his bat which was a risk of a catch to short leg. Then sometimes he would hit the seam and it would straighten up and the batsman would be committed to the shot and follow it so there was a high chance of an edge.

Basically the theory was that because Walsh was relentlessly fast and bowled nasty balls every ball, he built more mental pressure than any other bowler did, and in the end most batsman would crack and make some sort of error and they were gone.

I was really interested in this as a kid but thought it was just Titchards opinion, but then I've heard Atherton and Hussain both say the same at separate times on Sky, and both pretty much confirmed that Walsh was known on the circuit (international as well as county) as the most feared bowler.

i`ll go for either..bob willis..chris old...

My Dad used to play for Leigh back in the 70s and remembers playing for a Lancs league rep side (back when all the foreign players had to play league cricket, as the were banned from representing counties) with Jeff Thomson opening the bowling against an Aussie Journos XI who'd been slating him in print for a year... He says he went at them off his test run up!

Ian Austin gave hope to fat men everywhere... I once saw him stuffing a Ginsters down in a service station car park.

Didn't Courtney Walsh go absolutely spaz once because Devon Malcolm and someone else were hanging on for ages as a last wicket partnership?

Seem to remember him basically 'bodylining' poor old blind Dev.

Yes that was in the West Indies in 93/94, Walsh was vicious on that tour, he gave Atherton a good working over as well

At least when Devon was being bounced he knew that he could fire back. Walsh wasn't great with the bat and he was a big target if Devon wanted to give him some at the body.