Shoaib was the express train of 1999 (Allsport).

By David Clough

Shoaib Akhtar proved himself the fastest bowler at the last World Cup in 1999. But will he still be top of the speedgun charts in southern Africa - and who is the best among the current crop of the world's top quick bowlers? David Clough assesses the pace aces marking their run-ups this winter.

Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan)

By his own admission the Rawalpindi Express was in danger of being side-tracked by the speed gun. But he has decided wickets are more important than miles per hour and is intent on adding extra canniness to his extreme pace.

It is a sensible move if the 27-year-old is to avoid putting extra strain on his powerful frame. Shoaib has overcome injury and question marks over the legality of his action - and he is determined to prove his is an enduring talent.

Shoaib will always be a shock bowler, though, and is rightly used in short bursts in both forms of the game. Pace is his chief asset and the reason his short ball and yorker can be devastating even at the highest level.

If he strikes a balance between what he does best and sensible variation to complement his out-and-out pace there is no reason why he cannot be just as effective at this World Cup as he was at the last.

Allan Donald (South Africa)

Donald is a phenomenon. Fast bowlers, particularly in the modern era when injury lurks at the end of each run-up, do not stay the pace in international cricket. Yet the South African veteran has kept rolling on through a 20-year career.

Admittedly Donald 2003 is no longer the White Lightning who streaked through Test and one-day international line-ups in those early days. Out-and-out pace has been replaced by canny fast medium off a shortened run-up with less emphasis on the final leap - allowing Donald to keep going in the face of recurrent injuries, albeit in the one-day game only since his sensible retirement from the more punishing Test match discipline.

A 'rhythm' bowler if ever there was one, Donald was always susceptible to the occasional lacklustre spell. But he has always come back for more too - and what better way to have the last laugh than by contributing to a successful home campaign this winter.

Jason Gillespie (Australia)

Gillespie's talent tends to be under-estimated for two reasons.

Injuries have regularly intervened just when the South Australian has threatened to reach his full potential, and comparison with his international team-mates Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath does him few favours.

Not quite as quick as Lee and not quite so unerring as McGrath, he nonetheless has other qualities which mark him out as a world-class performer.

Gillespie bowls fast enough to be the main strike bowler for any international team; he delivers mostly from close to the stumps but has the nous to use the crease well on occasion - and he can move the ball both ways in the air and off the pitch.

It is a recipe for success at any level - for more success, in fact, than he has achieved so far. If Gillespie can stay fit he could yet charge out of the shadows cast by Lee and McGrath.

Brett Lee (Australia)

Lee is probably approaching his pomp and can expect to be the fastest bowler in the world over the next year or so - a yard or so ahead of the likes of Pakistan's Shoaib and Mohammad Sami, New Zealand's Shane Bond, England's Simon Jones and South Africa's Nantie Hayward.

If McGrath is the Aussies' modern-day Dennis Lillee Lee is their Jeff Thomson. Often bowling from slightly wider on the crease to his team-mates McGrath and Gillespie, he is on to even the best batsmen uncomfortably quickly.

Lee is perhaps a little less grooved than his two fellow Aussie pacemen, and the impression is that he is always more likely to spray the ball and prove vulnerable to a counter-attack from a batsman right out of the top rank.

His figures nonetheless compare with the best around, and he has the potential to improve again and carry all before him at World Cup 2003.

Glenn McGrath (Australia)

McGrath is the perfect fast bowler.

He is not quite the express pace of Lee, Shoaib or even Gough - but he does not need to be either.

McGrath does not impress as the most fluid athlete, yet his action is grooved to Hadlee or Holding-like standards and offers little or no hope that he is ever going to stray remotely off a precision line or length. The batsman has no room for manoeuvre.

McGrath's accuracy cuts off all avenues of adventure in one-day cricket, forcing even the most inventive and talented players to limit their ambition to pure survival.

In company with Gillespie, McGrath was so superior in England in summer 2001 that Steve Waugh was able to set unheard-of eight-one offside fields with just one man in front of the bat in bowler-friendly conditions for the one-day international at Old Trafford.

McGrath is something of a one-off in that he has little or no jump into his delivery stride, and from a side-on position which maximises the effectiveness of any sideways movement he has all the attributes to torture his victims before he eliminates them.

There is no doubt he is ahead of Lee, Shoaib and the rest as the world's premier pace bowler - and he seems sure to prove it yet again in southern Africa.