Five greatest exponents of the yorker in cricket

#4 Jeff Thomson

It was this delivery that made the 'sandshoe crusher' famous

Among the many names used to describe a yorker, the one preferred by Australians and New Zealanders is ‘sandshoe crusher.’ This term was coined in the 1970s and the credit for making it famous goes to Jeff Thomson.

The story of how the ‘sandshoe crusher’ became a major weapon for Thomson was narrated by Ian Chappell in one of his commentary stints for Channel 9. According to him, during the Brisbane Ashes Test in 1974, when he was captaining the famous duo of Thomson and Lillee, English batsman Tony Greig had got under their skin.

As a result, Chappell says, in the first innings of the Test, both the fast men kept trying to knock Greig out with a bouncer. They proved unsuccessful prompting their skipper to ask them, sarcastically, whether they would try to hit the stumps in the second innings.

Thomson, regarded by many as the quickest fast-bowler of all time, responded to his captain’s call by delivering a devastating in-swinging yorker that hit the base of leg-stump as Greig just managed to get his leg out of the way.

This was the birth of ‘sandshoe crusher’ and it was subsequently used to great effect by Thompson in his career.

It’s not hard to understand why the batsmen would find so hard to deal with a yorker bowled by this famous Aussie pacer. When a bowler is letting the ball go at near-unnatural pace, as he did, facing even a regulation length ball would be a challenge. Imagine then, how one that is right in the blockhole would trouble the unfortunate man at the other end!