Where have all the fast bowlers gone?

"Whatever the aesthetics of watching spin bowling, I maintain that for the pure adrenalin of cricket-watching there is no finer sight than that of a thoroughbred fast bowler on song, hurling himself into the fray against batsmen of the highest technical and mental calibre," says Mike Selvey in The Guardian.

Where are the genuine pace aces? There is Lee certainly, Harmison when he can be roused and Shane Bond when fit. The three slingers - Edwards, Shaun Tait and Lasith Malinga - are rapid, but that is about it really, isn't it? Some would argue that the volume of cricket conspires against those who want to bowl on the very edge of physical exertion, but I don't buy that: if you can bowl fast, you do. Nor does the state of pitches around the world offer a clue, for the dullest surfaces of them all produced Imran Khan and, together, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, the most prolific pace bowling combination the game has seen.