Jeffrey Robert Thomson is a former Australian cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er. Known as "Thommo", he was one of the fastest bowlers ever to play Test cricket

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 and was the opening partner of fellow fast bowler Dennis Lillee

Dennis Lillee

Dennis Keith Lillee, AM, MBE is a former Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation"...

; their combination was one of the most fearsome in Test cricket history. Commenting of their bowling during the 1974–75 season, Wisden

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...

 wrote: "... it was easy to believe they were the fastest pair ever to have coincided in a cricket team".

Competing in a 1978 fast bowling contest that included many of the leading bowlers in the world, Thomson came first with a delivery clocked at 147.9 km/h, ahead of Michael Holding

Michael Holding

Michael Anthony Holding is a former West Indian cricketer. One of the fastest bowlers ever to play Test cricket, he was nicknamed 'Whispering Death' by umpires due to his quiet approach to the bowling crease...

 (141.3 km/h) and Imran Khan

Imran Khan

Imran Khan Niazi is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics...

 (139.7 km/h).