Graham Gooch: Marshall is my No. 1 fast bowler

ESPN has been running a series of interviews with Graham Gooch in which he selects his all-time toughest competitors. In the final interview, Gooch names Malcolm Marshall as his toughest ever competitor and the greatest fast bowler he faced, just ahead of Wasim Akram and Dennis Lillee. Rightly so, too. Marshall dismissed Gooch 16 times in 21 Test matches (at an average of 28.50), the most of any bowler in his career.

www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/966893.html

If I was Gooch I think I'd have said Marshall was the best I'd faced aswell. When your looking at being bowled 16 out of 21 times by the one bowler, your not going to turn round and say somebody else now are you.

If you did, it would just look like you are being bitter, and if he had have said Akram for example, I'm sure the press and pundits would have gladly reeled off the Marshall statistics to make him look foolish.

How does he view Tayrol and Roach  ?

Though no bowler dismissed Gooch more times than Marshall, Gooch did have minimal success against Maco with an average of 28.50. Not great, by any stretch, but still better than Marshall's career bowling average of 20.94.

Gooch's worst batting average came against Terry Alderman who absolutely owned him. Alderman dismissed Gooch 7 times in 13 matches (including 2 ducks) at an average of 7.14. Goochie's numbers against Dennis Lillee were equally as rough - 8 dismissals in 10 matches at an average of 9.25. Those two were a large part of the reason why Gooch finished with a career average of 33 against the Aussies. The only Australian bowlers Gooch fared well against were Warne, McDermott and Bruce Reid.

Maybe his answer to the question should have been "take your pick" then! Seriously though I can see why Marshall would have stuck in his head after being dismissed that many times, and while he might have had the best bowling stats, he certainly owned Gooch in that respect.

One of my favourite Graham Gooch stats: In his entire 118 match Test career, spanning 209 dismissals, he was bowled by a left-arm fast bowler on only one occasion - by Wasim Akram at Lord's in 1992 . Gooch actually had good numbers against Wasim Akram, averaging 40.50.