Who bowled the fastest ball in cricket history?

Shoaib Akhtar holds the record, and it's stood for over two decades. He clocked 161.3 km/h (100.2 mph) against England in a 2003 World Cup match at Newlands, becoming the first bowler to officially break the 100 mph mark. It wasn't a one-off fluke either - throughout his career he regularly bowled in the 158-160 km/h range, which is part of why the record has held up; he was consistently near that speed, not just once. No bowler has officially broken it since. A handful of fast bowlers over the years have been unofficially clocked close to or above it in various broadcasts, but none of those readings have been recognised as beating Akhtar's official record - speed gun calibration and official verification matter a lot here, which is why the 2003 mark still stands as the recognised record more than 20 years later. For context on how rare that speed actually is: most genuine international fast bowlers today operate in the 140-150 km/h range, with a handful of the very quickest touching 155-158 km/h on their best deliveries. Akhtar's 161.3 km/h isn't just a record, it's still meaningfully faster than almost anyone bowls even at the highest level of the game today.