How this relentless Australian bowling attack stacks up against the greats

October 18, 2026 — 8:30am

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Australia’s Test bowling attack ranks among the best in the world over the last 50 years, having broken new ground as a quartet and taking an unprecedented number of wickets as a four-man unit.

Statistically, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon sit comfortably in the same pantheon as some of the best West Indian attacks from the late ’70s.

Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall and Colin Croft combined hostility with control. People have described facing them as like facing an execution squad, offering no respite from either end.

In Durban against South Africa last week, Australia out-bowled, out-batted and out-fielded their opponents and deserved their decisive victory. Central to the win was the attack.

Like past combinations from the late 1990s and early 2000s – comprising Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee – today’s attack offers the ultimate balance of precision, elite spin, pace and nagging persistence.

The South African quartet of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, and Jacques Kallis from the late 2000s and mid-2010s also dominated an era favouring batting.

Then there was Pakistan’s outstanding attack: Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, with the spin of Abdul Qadir, another brilliant group who turned the old ball into lethal weapons capable of tearing through middle........

© Brisbane Times