THERE is no doubt whatsoever that the hardest task has come last. In fact, this one is impossible but, with a deep breath or two, let me try to judge the most suitable pair of fast bowlers from a worldwide field for a five-match series against high-class batting in a variety of conditions. That calls for speed, hostility, accuracy, control of movement, spirit and stamina.

An extraordinary number of bowlers from the past 49 years fit the bill. From Australia I propose Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Alan Davidson, Graeme McKenzie, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson, Craig McDermott and Glenn McGrath; from West Indies, Wes Hall, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose; from South Africa, Neil Adcock, Peter and Shaun Pollock, Mike Procter, Vintcent van der Bijl (a great bowler who never got the chance to play Test cricket) and Allan Donald; from India, Kapil Dev; from New Zealand, Richard Hadlee; from Pakistan, Fazal Mahmood, Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

Where does one begin? Any pair of these formidable bowlers would do the job. One can reflect only briefly on the particular merits of each and try to make a Sibylline judgment.

Of the Australians, Lindwall was past his peak by 1953 but one still recalls his long, flowing action with an old-fashioned drag of the back foot that the present no-ball law will not allow. Miller was brilliant, explosive and unpredictable. Davidson was a superb swing bowler, not always fit. McKenzie carried his country's attack for some years, always, it seemed, with a smile. He had a marvellous action, admirable stamina and swung it away at great pace.

Lillee was the complete fast bowler, capable of taking wickets throughout his career by an almost unique combination of demonic hostility and extraordinary craft. At first he beat sides on his own. After his back injury he learnt to use all the skills of fast bowling and, with Thomson as his partner for a short time, Australia were close to invincible.

Thomson, for about three years, was the fastest bowler through the air that I have seen and a terror against England in 1974-75. McDermott was a fitness fanatic and very good but I believe McGrath has made himself better than any bar Lillee. He seldom bowls a bad ball and always seems to possess an extra gear, within the smooth, apparently effortless action, to deal with a particularly dangerous batsman. The exceptions, such as Mark Butcher in his purple innings last season, merely prove the rule.

It was a tremendous thrill to go to Lord's in 1963 to see Wes Hall. Like Lillee or Waqar in later years, he seemed to bowl flat out all the time. A crucifix would bounce against his black chest as his long run-up reached its climax. More than one quaking batsman has claimed that, to his great relief, the crucifix struck Hall in the eye at the moment critique.

Certainly he was spectacular, but there were better bowlers still to come. Garner was 6ft 8in, almost effortlessly fast, with a yorker that threatened the toes as well as the stumps; Roberts was a cool assassin, very fast but with excellent control and quite ruthless. Holding's nickname was "Whispering Death", whose silent footfall took umpires by surprise. He ran up like a gazelle and his 14 for 149 at the Oval in 1976 was swift swing bowling of the purest kind.

Marshall may have been the best of the lot: he was certainly capable of the greatest variations of swing and seam. A slight figure, he had a wonderful natural rhythm, zipping to the stumps, curving the ball at a pace as slippery as an eel. Ambrose's great strength was the unerring, almost metronomic accuracy that he managed from a loose action: his great height made him one of the most awkward and remorseless of them all. As for Walsh, he defied the rules of physiology, becoming stronger and better with the years. He was the Duracell of cricket.

Donald is a fine example of a contemporary of Walsh's who looks more athletic and flexible yet who broke down more often. When fit he was a superb fast bowler, the best of a distinguished group from his country, of whom Procter had least chance to prove himself on the world stage. What a cricketer Procter was, though. He could bat like Walter Hammond and bowl inswingers as irresistible as a north wind.

Much the same is true of Imran, a genuine fast bowler and all-rounder in the same elite class, and of Waqar, whose full-blooded race to the stumps and astonishing powers of late swerve have been one of the great sights in cricket for ten years and more. His striking rate of a wicket every 42 balls has not been equalled since pre-First World War days when pitches were far more sporting. His great partner, Wasim, has been an even more compelling all-rounder to watch, a complete natural with a bowling arm as fast as a whip's lash and amazing powers of swing.

These three great Pakistan cricketers might all be preferred to two more great bowlers from the Punjab, Fazal, not much more than medium-paced but a demon on the mat and sometimes, as at the Oval in 1954, on turf, too; and Kapil. For his classical action and extraordinarily consistent success in conditions often inimical to fast bowling, the "Haryana Express" rates highly in the pantheon.

The most masterly of the lot, I believe, were Lillee, Marshall and Hadlee.

Only once, when he was due to take his 300th Test wicket against England on his home ground at Christchurch and failed to do so because he tried too hard, did I not feel that Hadlee was capable of mastering any batsman in any situation. Like Lillee, he switched from being a tearaway fast bowler to a thinking one and, in Hadlee's case, the tricks of out and inswing, off and leg cut, slower ball or bouncer were up his sleeve all the time. When well into his thirties he took 51 wickets in two three-match series in Australia, the side against whom, above all, he wanted to excel. He took 431 Test wickets at 22 from "only" 86 Tests, ten in a match nine times and five in an innings an astonishing 36 times.

Having canvassed the views of several who played with Hadlee and Marshall, however, and having chosen Lillee as primus inter pares, I go for Marshall because, although both were supreme craftsmen, Marshall had the extra element of finger-breaking, stomach-churning speed.

He could strike sparks from the flattest of pitches, such as the one at Lord's in the 1987 MCC bicentenary match, when he should have had Sunil Gavaskar leg before for nought (he made a double hundred) but made amends by roughing up the Lord's specialist, Dilip Vengsarkar, with ruthless short-pitched stuff, purely to settle an old score. No one among the other great bowlers in the match could manage anything so hostile.

Looking neither to left nor right, therefore, I take the plunge and name Marshall, a master craftsman with a ruthless eye for a batsman's weakness, and Lillee, the epitome of controlled fury, as my pair.