Jeff Thomson

Jeffrey Robert Thomson (born 16 August 1950) is a former Australian cricketer.

Many of the players of the 1970s and 1980s generation also rate Thomson as the fastest they faced, including West Indian Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar.

Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd regards Thomson as the fastest bowler he has ever seen, as does Michael Holding, himself an extremely fast bowler in his prime.

Geoffrey Boycott rates Thomson joint-fastest with Holding, whilst Martin Crowe rated Thomson and Holding as the hardest bowlers to face, commenting: "Thomson was just a freak – a very unique action. You never really saw it."

Incidents were reported of Thomson delivering byes which hit the sight screen behind the facing batsman after just one bounce on the pitch.

These reports were mostly from the time when he was at his very fastest—the period between 1972 and 1976—though several instances are cited when this happened even after his injury, including up until the early 1980s.

Thomson has said that one of his fastest spells was one against the West Indies in Barbados during World Series Cricket.

After several West Indian bowlers had hit Australian batsman, he has been quoted as saying he "wanted to return the favour".

He also rates a spell against Victoria whilst playing for Queensland at the Gabba in Brisbane.

Thomson enjoyed a rapid rise in the 1972–73 season.

He made his first-class debut for New South Wales (NSW) in October 1972 against Western Australia, replacing David Colley, who was injured.

He also took 5–97 for NSW Colts against Queensland Colts.

After playing five first-class games and taking 17 wickets, Thomson was a surprise selection in for the second Test against Pakistan.

He replaced Bob Massie, who was picked in the first Test side.

It was felt Thomson's selection was an experimental one with a view to the West Indies tour at the end of the summer.

"I will try my guts out," said Thomson.

"I was just hoping that I might pick up some more wickets in the forthcoming matches against Victoria so that they might think of me for the West Indies."

Against Pakistan at the MCG, Thomson returned match figures of 0/110.

Later, he was diagnosed as having played with a broken bone in his foot, the pain from which he kept concealed from selectors and teammates.

Commenting on their bowling during the 1974–75 season, Wisden wrote: "... it was easy to believe they were the fastest pair ever to have coincided in a cricket team".

Another news reporter reported: "Dump a cricket ball in kerosene, light it on fire and launch it out of a cannon and then you'll get something like Jeff Thomson."

Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975, which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time, and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time.

He was the opening partner of fellow fast bowler Dennis Lillee; their combination was one of the most fearsome in Test cricket history.

In December 1975, after the second Test match against the West Indies at the WACA, he was timed with a release speed of 160.45 km/h using accurate, high-speed photo-sonic cameras.

The study was carried out by Tom Penrose and Brian Blanksby of the University of Western Australia, and Daryl Foster of the Secondary Teachers' College in Perth.

Measurements were also made of three other fast bowlers, Dennis Lillee, Andy Roberts and Michael Holding.

Thomson's fastest delivery was the quickest, with Roberts second with a delivery measured at 150.67 km/h.

His maximum speed was measured at 147.9 km/h using the same method as employed during the 1975 study at the WACA.

(Incidentally, a follow-up study in 1976 put him at 160.6 km/h—he was the fastest of those tested in both studies.) He also won the accuracy prize in the competition.

Four decades on, Thomson mentioned in an episode of Cricket Legends that he had intentionally bowled full tosses for the competition in order to improve his score.

There was a $5,000 cash prize for the fastest bowler, and there was an additional $5,000 for the most accurate bowler (three points for the middle stump, and one point for either leg stump or off stump); Thomson scooped the entire $10,000 prize pool (approximately $50,000 in 2022 terms).

Thomson recalled:"If you bowl a bouncer, it's gonna come off slower anyway. So I'm thinking this is gonna be takin', you know, candy from a baby. And I've put my beer down, I come out, and I bowled a few balls—and I was bowling full tosses and that, because I knew they'd be quick. So I won the 5 grand, I hit the stumps three times out of six or whatever [in fact, the bowlers had 8 deliveries in total], and I've cleaned up. And I've come back out, and Kerry said: 'How did you go?'. I said, 'I won, boss'; he said, 'good'."Many critics who saw Thomson bowl rate him as one of the fastest they had seen, including Richie Benaud, who considered him the fastest since Frank Tyson.

Australian wicket-keeper Rod Marsh kept wicket to Thomson for most of his Test career and has claimed that Thomson bowled upwards of 180 km/h, an opinion also held by fellow Australians Ian Chappell and Ashley Mallett.

However, the fastest measured delivery as of 2022 was Shoaib Akhtar's delivery in of 161.3 km/h at the 2003 World Cup, making such a claim extremely unlikely (if not impossible) to have actually occurred.

In 1979, Thomson won a fastest-bowling competition held by the Australian television station Channel 9, in a year in which he was banned from playing professional cricket due to striking a soccer referee.

In the 1990s, Thomson was the bowling coach for Queensland.

In 1992, after a practice session bowling in the nets to several of the Queensland batsmen, including Allan Border, Thomson was encouraged to play for the team, as, even at the age of 42, he was still faster than any of the Queensland bowlers.

Only the youth policy of the team prevented him from rejoining the side to play competitively.

He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2016.

Thomson had an unusual but highly effective slinging delivery action that he learned from his father.