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Wickets and bowling figures are not the only things that pace bowlers compete on. There's also that thing about being the fastest bowler in the world.

And it often comes down not to consistency – or average speed – but to who can claim to have bowled the fastest delivery in history. With state of the art technology now able to measure speeds very, very accurately, the contest has taken on a life of its own.

On Sunday, there was a new claimant to the throne. After lunch on the third day of the second Test between Australia and New Zealand at Perth, Aussie speedster Mitchell Starc served up a searing spell with average speeds of over 150 kilometres per hour.

And then he capped it off with a 160.4-kph toe-crushing yorker, which batsman Ross Taylor managed to dig out somehow. Starc’s speed missile, clocking in at just a shade below 100 miles per hour, was immediately hailed as the fastest ever delivery in a Test match.

Except, well, someone else might feel aggrieved. And that someone is none other than Starc’s former Australian team-mate Brett Lee.

While Brett Lee is already part of the elite 160-kph club, delivering a 161.1-kph snorter to uproot Marvan Atapattu’s stumps during the 2003 World Cup semi-final, a clip from an old Test match shows him bowling at an even faster pace.

West Indies were touring Australia in 2000 and were already in all sorts of trouble at 82/9. Lee steamed in and delivered a nasty bouncer to Courtney Walsh who could only balloon a simple catch to Justin Langer at short-mid on. But keep your eye on the speed counter... and you’ll see that the delivery was clocked at 161.8 kph, far faster than Starc’s 160.4 kph effort on Sunday.

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The other members of this elite club are Shoaib Akhtar who clocked 161.3 kph against England in an ODI during the 2003 World Cup, Shaun Tait with similar speeds against England in an ODI in 2010, and, finally, yesteryears Aussie cannon Jeff Thompson, who was measured at 160.6 kph.

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