THE WORD`great', so often carelessly used, may legitimately be summoned in the case of Ray Lindwall, and not only as a fast bowler, for he was a man of generosity, good humour and humility. His long Test career, begun late because of the war, brought him 228 wickets (at only 23.03), an Australian record at the time, his early raw pace gradually lessening, though not by much, as his wisdom increased. Above all, he had a run-up and action that were the epitome of rhythmic athletic grace, right arm swinging, beautiful acceleration, smooth unwinding, and explosive final whirl of the arm.

An inch under 6ft, even as a young man he had a low arm action, which was the key to his glorious outswinger: no `banana ball' this, but something which changed course devilishly late. While under contract to Nelson in Lancashire in 1952, he beat the bat so often that he decided to revive the inswinger he had bowled as a youth. If he was only now the complete bowler, what might county batsmen of 1948 have thought, for on that first Test tour of England he had captured 86 wickets at a mere 15.69, 27 of them in the Tests at 19.63.

So numerous were the team and individual triumphs on Don Bradman's final tour that Lindwall's 6 for 20 in the rout of England for 52 at the Oval seems a trifle devalued, particularly as The Don's final-innings duck so soon afterwards prompted bigger headlines. Yet Lindwall was a constant menace in 1948, after the opening Test, when he took only one wicket ( Washbrook, hooking) before a groin strain put him out. His 27 wickets and the often-forgotten Bill Johnston's 27, backed by 13 from the fiery Keith Miller, gave Australia such bowling ascendancy to back their formidable batting line-up that Bradman's wish for an unbeaten tour was fulfilled.

As the years have passed, just to have been a member of the illustrious 1948 Australian side seems to have brought a kind of royal status, and to the end Ray Lindwall was revered for this as well as for being conceivably the best fast bowler of them all, a matter clearly never to be resolved. When he died at 74 on June 23, in Brisbane, from complications following a stroke, a Test match was in progress far away at Lord's, and a pall descended on the old ground. The MCC flag was flown at half-mast, and the misty-eyed reminiscence of older people harmonised with the curiosity of the young. Here, in his first Lord's Test, Lindwall had taken eight wickets, followed by seven more in 1953. And a recent portrait in oils did him honour in the precincts of the pavilion – slightly to his embarrassment.

 BORN NOT FAR from Sydney's main airport on October 3, 1921, Raymond Russell Lindwall, whose mother died when he was seven, had the best of cricketing influences close at hand during his boyhood. Bradman played grade cricket at nearby Hurstville Oval for St George, which was soon to be Lindwall's club, while Bill O'Reilly lived around the corner, and was to have considerable influence. When the 11-year-old saw Harold Larwood bowl for England in the first of the Bodyline Tests, at the SCG, his fate was sealed. The express bowler's gallop to the crease and perfect arm and body action fired the youngster's imagination.

 Lindwall also happened to be a born batsman, compact, strong on the drive, capable of a double-century in the morning and a century elsewhere in the afternoon in junior matches, while in winter he progressed as a Rugby League fullback, playing alongside brother Jack for St George.

He served in Army Signals in the Pacific, contracting a range of tropical illnesses, and was 24 before he resumed the NSW career which had begun with a match in Brisbane the week before Pearl Harbor in 1941.

His class was never in doubt, and he was playing for Australia by March 1946– in that strange Test against New Zealand at Wellington, when the locals (42 and 54) were beaten by an innings in less than nine hours. Keith Miller was another debutant.

When Hammond's 1946–47 England team faced Australia, the classic confrontation of the generation unfurled as Lindwall purred in to unleash his armament at Len Hutton, the artistic and somewhat frail world Test record-holder. Their duels over the next few years were high drama, with honours fairly even at the end, and the contests usually had a heavy bearing on the outcome of the matches. Lindwall's chickenpox during the Brisbane Test meant that the face-to-face did not truly start until the Third Test, at Melbourne, but there he had Hutton caught at slip for 2, and followed up by scoring 100 (112 minutes) from the No. 9 position in Australia's second innings, after his St George team-mate Arthur Morris had made 155. At Adelaide, Lindwall came close to a hat-trick with three England wickets (all bowled) in four balls to wrap up the innings, and in the final Test, at his beloved SCG, he crashed through England (though not Hutton, who retired ill for 122) with 7 for 63.

A year later, he scorched to the best figures of his long Test career, 7 for 38 against India at Adelaide, and with Miller now living in Sydney following a job offer, one of history's most dreaded pairs of fast men was together for state and country. The next engagement was England in 1948.

There was early anxiety as attention was focused on Lindwall's long drag in delivery. It was thought that English umpires, goaded by the press, might make life difficult for the newcomer, but sensible counsel prevailed, with the fatherly Bradman as the key intermediary.

It was Miller who caused initial concern, bouncing steeply in the Test at Trent Bridge, where the locals still resented the harsh criticism of their own pre-war heroes Larwood and Voce. In the earlier county game, however, the old England medium-pace maestro Maurice Tate so liked the look of Lindwall as he took 6 for 14 that he stated he was the equal of Larwood.

Bumpers, as bouncers were then called, became a serious issue, not least when Compton, in the Manchester Test, edged a short ball from Lindwall onto his brow and left the field streaming blood. He later returned to complete an epic 145 not out. An impartial observer put matters into perspective by asserting that Lindwall's 26 overs that day had contained only seven bouncers. The bowler grew exasperated in the second innings when Hassett dropped a hook from Washbrook, sinking to his knees and, for once in his life, thinking, if not uttering, a profanity.

  Lindwall returned home in triumph with the rest of the 1948 side and was now regarded as the most feared fast bowler in the world – in terms of sustained performance as against Miller's capacity to shock. And yet, when Australia next took the Test field, just over a year later in South Africa, Miller had been omitted and Lindwall gained weight and lost form, to be dropped for the last Test, by which time Miller had joined the tour after Johnston had been injured in a car crash.

Any English hopes that Lindwall's career was to be short and sweet were demolished in the 1950–51, series, when he was an ever-present threat without running completely amok. And when West Indies toured in'51–52, he bagged another 21 wickets, only to finish the series wreathed in controversy for bowling a barrage of bouncers at Everton Weekes. The brilliant West Indian was clearly uncomfortable, missing with his hooks and being chastised by his partner, Jeff Stollmeyer. Lindwall felt it prudent to see the skirmish through and a few torrid balls later he had Weekes caught by keeper Langley via the bat-handle. In the eyes of respected old timers such as O'Reilly and Alan McGilvray, Lindwall's 5 for 52 which secured victory was not earned entirely honourably. Their criticism stung, and rankled with him till the end of his days. Modern excesses, as Lindwall was well aware, have been immeasurably worse; and, significantly, Weekes himself later described that period of play as `beautiful psychology: having me caught between instinct and instructions'.

After a happy, sociable season in England playing for Nelson, when his son was born, Ray returned home to take 19 wickets at low cost in the series against South Africa. But there were signs that the might of the postwar side was just beginning to wane, and though the Australians fought hard through the first four Tests in England in the Coronation year of glamour, 1953, the Ashes finally changed hands at the Oval, Hutton's Englishmen earning immortality as Hassett's ageing side, with its immature allrounders, finally went down. And yet Lindwall was still potent: 5 for 57 at Trent Bridge, 5 for 66 at Lord's, 5 for 54 at Headingley (where he stunned the gathering on the first morning by bowling Hutton for 0): 26 wickets in all at under 19 apiece. And by way of reminder, he top-scored with a handsome 62 in Australia's first innings at the Oval.

By the end of the next Ashes series, in 1954–55, England really did think they were rid of him. Trevor Bailey actually donated his wicket to ensure that Lindwall joined the elite who had taken 100 wickets in Anglo-Australian Tests. It was one of the game's most laughable ironies that Lindwall was still around four years later to inflict a `pair' on Bailey in the fifth Test, Bailey's last.

During that period Lindwall had hit his Second Test century, in Barbados in 1955, and held his place for a third England tour, in 1956, when England retained the Ashes again, Laker taking 46 wickets. On the way home, Lindwall had the honour of captaining Australia in the Bombay Test when Ian Johnson fell ill, having been far from well himself. Yet it was a rewarding, appendix to the England tour, for at Karachi Lindwall took his 200th Test wicket, and at Madras he got up from a sickbed and took 7 for 43 to hasten India to an innings defeat.

It seemed all over when he missed the 1957–58 tour of South Africa, but the selectors recalled him, at 37, for the'58–59 Test against England at Adelaide, to a jocular background chorus of `the last of the straight-armed bowlers', for suspicion surrounded several of the Australians' actions. Nor was he quite finished: he was taken on the tour of the subcontinent in'59–60, where he played the last of his 61 Tests.

Having gone north to settle in Queensland in 1954, Ray Lindwall now ended his Sheffield Shield career, having captained the state shrewdly, and played a few more first-class matches on private tours, to finish with 794 wickets at 21.36, his best figures, 7 for 20 (six bowled), coming modestly against Minor Counties on a poor pitch at Stoke in 1953. As a batsman who might have prospered dramatically had he not been such a wonderful bowler, he made five centuries, and 5042 runs at 21.83, 1502 of them coming in Tests at 21.15.

He later wrote and broadcast in typically low-key style, coached with great insight, and served as a selector. Appointed MBE, he retained his fondness for England, and returned a number of times, welcomed and revered wherever he went. His 1995 biographer, John Ringwood, worked out that Lindwall bowled 45% of his Test victims, three times the percentage of Dennis Lillee, and shrewdly noticed that, even in boyhood photos, he had a `steady, serious gaze' with `a hint of inner strength and determination'. Among his other countless admirers, Fred Trueman regarded him as `the greatest fast bowler that's ever lived – a quick bowler with the accuracy of a medium-pacer'.

 Ray Lindwall was of an age when little money accrued for Test cricketers. They were sportsmen in the full sense of the word, and played purely for honour. He set up a small chain of flower-shops around Brisbane which flourished for a while, then caused anxiety. He worked – and played golf – into his seventies, and tried to keep diabetes under control. In 1993, friends in Brisbane organised a successful testimonial for him. His humour was wry, his courage high, and he will be very deeply missed.

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