I've just found an old article on Ian Nicholson, a very strange one at that:
You're way out of our league
A league cricketer in England takes 7 for 35, dismisses the hapless opposition for 56, and gets reported to the authorities for being "too good" a player. Ian Nicolson, a former Zimbabwe Under-19 allrounder, had his eligibility for an all-amateur league questioned by the opposing captain David Townsend, who said his batsmen were unable to face Nicolson's freakishly quick deliveries, bowled off just four or five paces. Nicolson was later cleared to play, based on the fact that he held a valid UK passport and that he had not been a paid professional cricketer in the last two years.
Gives us a ruff idea as to how fast Ian Nicholson was, and how yet another one of our risisng stars were lost to English and South African Cricket