Jeff Thomson

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

On 27 January 2016 Thomson was inducted in the Australian hall of fame

Incidents were reported of Thomson delivering byes which hit the sight-screen behind the facing batsman on the full, 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, long before boundary ropes began to be pulled in (which happened around 1990) – though several instances are cited when this happened even after his injury, till the early 1980s.

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

Forming an intimidating bowling partnership with Dennis Lillee, Thomson captured 33 wickets in the series and looked to set to beat Arthur Mailey's record of 36 Test wickets in an Australian test season. However, he injured his shoulder playing a social tennis match during the rest day of the fifth Test at Adelaide and missed the rest of the summer. Australia's eventual winning margin was 4–1.

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.

Continuing with Queensland as captain, Thomson was chosen for the 1985 tour of England. The rebel tours to South Africa had stripped the Australian team of pace bowlers. In the first Test, his match figures were 2/174 and he was omitted until the fifth Test, when he scored 28 not out in the first innings, his highest Test score since 1977. His only wicket was Graham Gooch, giving him 200 Test wickets.

Thomson never represented Australia again, he did however help Queensland reach the Sheffield Shield final in his last season of first-class cricket in 1985-86 but they missed out to NSW.

Martin Crowe, who was one of the leading international batsmen from 1982 to 1995, rated Thomson and Michael Holding as the hardest bowlers to pick "Thomson was just a freak - a very unique action. You never really saw it."

Overlooked for the 1981 Ashes tour of England, he decided to spend the season with Middlesex in the hope that he might be needed as a late replacement in the Australian team, but he got injured.

Thomson reclaimed his place in 1981–82 when he played eight of the nine Tests against Pakistan and the West Indies (in Australia) and in New Zealand. His figures were pedestrian: 20 wickets at 36.4, with a best of 4/51. However, he found a regular place in the ODI team and took 19 wickets (at 27.42 average) in 13 matches during the World Series Cup.

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. His maximum speed was measured at 147.9 km/h using the same method as employed during the 1975 study at the WACA. He also came top for accuracy in the competition.

As part of the negotiations for the peace treaty between the two organisations, the ACB agreed to let Thomson play in WSC's tour of the Caribbean in the spring of 1979. Reunited with Lillee, he returned 16 wickets in five "Supertests", including 5/78 at Trinidad.

Although he returned to Test cricket during the 1977 Ashes series in England, he was never as consistently fast again. Lillee missed the tour because of back problems, and Thomson responded as the spearhead of the attack by taking 23 wickets at 25.34 average. Australia's performance was said to suffer by the revelation that most of the team had signed to play World Series Cricket (WSC) in opposition to official cricket, although skipper Greg Chappell concedes his side would have been beaten anyway.

In the rebuilt Australian Test team of 1977–78, Thomson was the senior player after the recalled veteran, Captain Bob Simpson. In the first Test against India at Brisbane, Thomson contributed seven wickets and 41 not out towards an Australian victory. During the second Test at Perth, he claimed six wickets and finished the series with 22 wickets at an average of 23.45. Australia had a narrow 3–2 win that helped the ACB maintain its optimism that it could win the war with WSC. Thomson, meanwhile, had success at domestic level, taking 6/18 in his only Gillette Cup appearance, against South Australia in Brisbane, which was enough to be voted man-of-the-series, winning him a prize of two return tickets to Fiji.

A severe injury resulted from an on-field collision with teammate Alan Turner as they both attempted a catch in the first Test match against Pakistan at Adelaide on Christmas Eve, 1976. A dislocation of his right collarbone forced him to miss the remainder of the season.

Thomson had an unusual but highly effective slinging delivery action that he learned from his father. 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 highly accurate, high-speed Photo-Sonics 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, and the study is described in Dennis Lillee's book, The Art of Fast Bowling.

In the 1975–76 series against the West Indies, he took 29 wickets in the six Tests. He conceded a lot of runs but often induced the West Indies batsmen to play injudicious shots. Wisden thought his bowling had improved from the previous Australian season.

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

Thomson came to the fore in 1974–75 with 33 wickets in the Ashes series. Helmets and the other modern protective items for batsmen were not available at the time, and there were no restrictions on the use of the bouncer. The success of the Australian cricket team with fast bowling prompted an era when pace bowling dominated the game, at the expense of slow bowling.

When Thomson was selected for the first Test of the 1974–75 Ashes series, the English players had seen him in action only once, during a tour match against Queensland when Thomson bowled well within himself on the instruction of his captain Greg Chappell. He created controversy during a television interview before the Test when he said, "I enjoy hitting a batsman more than getting him out. I like to see blood on the pitch". In the second innings of the match, he bowled Australia to victory with a spell of 6/46. At Perth, he injured several batsmen and finished off the game with 5/93 in the second innings as Australia recorded another victory.

During the 1974–75 Ashes series, Sydney newspaper The Sunday Telegraph ran a photo of Lillee and Thomson with a cartoon caption underneath that read:

Following this, he disappeared from first-class cricket until the final match of the 1973–74 season against Queensland. (Although he did bowl for NSW Colts over the summer.)

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 WA, replacing David Colley who was injured.

Many cricketers, experts and viewers who have watched cricket from at least the 1970s rate Thomson as the fastest they have ever seen. Richie Benaud rated Thomson as the fastest he had seen 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. Ian Chappell and Ashley Mallett have also opined the same.

Many of the players of the 1970s and 1980s generation also rate Thomson as the fastest they ever faced or even saw. West Indian batting legend Viv Richards rate Thomson as the fastest he has ever faced. Richards' opinion counts for a lot, as he faced almost all the fastest bowlers of all time through the 1970s and 1980s in John Snow, Dennis Lillee, Andy Roberts, Imran Khan, Michael Holding, Sylvester Clarke, Wayne Daniel, Malcolm Marshall, Patrick Patterson, Alan Ward, Len Pascoe, Garth Le Roux, Graham Dilley etc, and Devon Malcolm and Waqar Younis in the early 1990s, at various levels, in International matches, the WSC, and the Caribbean, Australian and England County leagues.

The reunion of the partnership for Test cricket was less successful. A number of fast bowlers had enjoyed success for Australia during Thomson's absence from the team, yet the selectors were keen to see Lillee and Thomson attempt to reprise their success of the mid-1970s. However, Thomson managed only two Tests in 1979–80 when he was dropped. He played four ODIs in the first World Series Cup, but bowled erratically in two day/night matches against England at the SCG that confirmed his unsuitability to limited-overs cricket. Thereafter, injuries contributed to his absence from the team.

Jeffrey Robert Thomson (born 16 August 1950) is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is considered by many in the sport to be the fastest bowler of his generation. In an interview he claimed that he has bowled around a speed of 175 km/h but due to lack of technology his bowl was measured 161 km/h.