Harold Larwood was rated as possibly the fastest bowler of all time in a book "The Fast Men" by David Frith (Corgi Books, 1977, p114). Dr KN Raghavan More than the number of wickets, it was the pace he generated and the menace he conveyed that shocked the Indians. { mobiles and tablets. Marshall ran like a cheetah, sprinting and skidding as he got close to the bowling crease, and delivered the ball with a quick round-arm action. Bob Willis had the same kind of run-up, but he was not as fast as Marshall. As a wag once remarked âhe runs in as fast as he bowls!â but during his later days, he cut down on his pace and went flat out only occasionally. He could bowl effectively from around the stumps too, where his strategy of  approaching the wicket from behind the umpire used to give batsman even lesser time to read his thunderbolts. During the 1980s, Marshall reigned supreme. He was 1.8 meters tall and lanky in appearance, but that did not stop him from becoming the most lethal bowler from West Indies. Primarily a fast bowler, Marshall is regarded as one of the finest and fastest pacemen ever to have played Test cricket. For the record, he bowled 18 overs, picking up the solitary wicket of Chetan Chauhan, conceding 53 runs. The person posting the comment will be in sole ownership of its responsibility. Cricket is called the game of gentlemen. Latest . Bob Willis had the same kind of run-up, but he was not as fast as Marshall. Malcolm Marshall was relatively small for a fast bowler at 5ft 11in and this made him predominantly awkward. But he was there to greet the Indians when they visited the Caribbean in 1989. His bowling action was unorthodox in that it was open chested, and not side on as recommended in coaching manuals. The comments posted here/below/in the given space are not on behalf of Onmanorama. He is the proud new owner of the fastest delivery in Test cricket, but Australian paceman Mitchell Starc will have to wait a bit longer before being accepted into the 100-mile club. He also developed a beautiful leg cutter, the most difficult of all crafts to master, which he deployed with excellent results on slow and dusty pitches. Indeed his average of 20.94 runs per Test wicket has yet to be bettered by any Test bowler with over 200 wickets. Malcolm Marshall bowled with an angular run-up instead of a straight run-up. He would bowl bouncers mostly from round-the-wicket to a right-hand batsman, with a middle and leg line such that batsman did not even have a chance to duck and save themselves from the body blow. When India visited West Indies in early 1983, he was the fastest among the pacers but was usually brought in as first or second change by skipper Clive Lloyd. Lillee never played in India and had a miserable tour of Pakistan in 1980 when he picked up just three wickets. When the West Indies toured England in 1980, he made the best out of an opportunity that he got in the third Test in the series and grabbed three middle order wickets in quick succession to trigger a collapse that saw seven wickets fall for just 24 runs. Marshall was one of the stars of the West Indies team which dominated international cricket for more than a decade from the mid-1970s. All four - Andy Roberts, Holding, Garner and Marshall were savage and revered at the same tim e.Marshall was a slight departure among the quadruple. He consistently bowled at 90+ mph for the most part of his career and took 376 wickets at an average of 20.94. It was the beginning of a long partnership that was to prove fruitful for both parties. Marshall scores above the other fast bowling greats of his era on two aspects. For 13 cricketers, two umpires and a couple of thousand spectators the earth stood still: all eyes were on a cricket ball that was scorching a pathway to the boundary. Though there were the occasional losses, the West Indies were considered to be the top team in the world, especially in the longer version of the game. It quotes a recorded speed of 96mph (154.5 kph), although it is not clear how this speed was obtained. Malcolm Marshall, Dale Steyn, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis all … Marshall hailed from Barbados, the island nation that has produced a cricketing great like Gary Sobers and fast bowler Wes Hall. Malcolm Marshall: A Fast-Bowling Great Who Was Admired Universally Wisden Cricket - by Ben Dobson. It was great for the punters but it wasn’t so great for the blokes who had to face Michael Holding (Lancashire and Derbyshire), Malcolm Marshall (Hampshire), Joel Garner (Somerset) or Sylvester Clarke (Surrey). Australians have bowled five of the 10 fastest deliveries, Shoaib Akhtar tops list - in pictures Only three bowlers have crossed 100mph barrier in the history of cricket Shoaib Akhtar (161.3kph / 100.2mph): The Rawalpindi Express is the fastest bowler the world has seen. The ball to Gooch genuinely seems to speed up off the pitch. Malcolm Denzil Marshall (18 April 1958 – 4 November 1999) was a Barbadian cricketer. 5 Greatest fast bowlers of all time. It was great for the punters but it wasn’t so great for the blokes who had to face Michael Holding (Lancashire and Derbyshire), Malcolm Marshall (Hampshire), Joel Garner (Somerset) or Sylvester Clarke (Surrey). Wasim Akram – Pakistan 1985-2002. Malcolm Denzil, Marshall, born on 18 th April, 1958, in Bridgetown, St. Michael, Barbados, a small Caribbean island with quarter million population. Source: Wisden If Joel Garner and Wes Hall, two of the meanest and merciless exponents of pace bowling had the intimidating physical presence about them, Malcolm Marshall, at 1.80 meters, did all the magic minus any of that daunting reach. Vengsarkar that he chose to point this out, knowing fully well that it would bring on him the ire of the bowler. Harold Larwood was rated as possibly the fastest bowler of all time in a book "The Fast Men" by David Frith (Corgi Books, 1977, p114). According to reports Malcolm was the fastest bowler for West Indies in the 1980s. But he was a beautiful bowler when I faced him in 1988-89. June 02, 2020 04:12 PM IST. Instead what he saw, was a small ring which he would aim to hit. Back in 2002, the Pakistani paceman became the first bowler to break the 100mph barrier, and his record for the fastest ball bowled in international cricket has stood for almost 17 years. The decade-and-half from 1976 onwards was the period when the West Indies ruled world cricket. Though he did not make any impact in either of them, he was selected to be part of the West Indies squad that played 1979 ICC World Cup. "@type": "WebSite", The second Test of the series between India and the West Indies, played at Bangalore in December, 1978, does not have any statistic worth recollecting except the debut of Marshall. Bob Willis had the same kind of run-up, but he was not as fast as Marshall. Gavaskar once mentioned that when he faced Marshall, he could never see the entire bowl coming at him. In his autobiography âMarshall Artsâ he has written in great detail about his tussle with Vengsarkar, and how his anger reached a crescendo when the batsman, while standing at non striker's end, pointed out to the umpire that Marshall was overstepping and bowling no-balls. Through the early part of 1980s Marshall was easily the fastest bowler in the world. Malcolm Marshall: A fast-bowling supremo in West Indies’ golden era – Almanack by Almanack Archive November 4, 2020 - 12:24pm 7 minute read Of all the battery of fast bowlers produced by West Indies in the 1970s and 1980s, Malcolm Marshall was the greatest. ). 8- Malcolm Marshall (West Indies) Occupying the eighth spot on the top 10 list of the best cricketers of all time is Malcolm Marshall. Regarded as the hardest man to don the baggy green, Border, for 15 years, faced up to dangerous West Indian pace battalions that included the likes of Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall… Very few players in the history of the game have played with such a big heart and roared like a lion as he did. He picked up 11 wickets at Port of Spain, the venue that had traditionally favoured the tourists, to help seal a 217-run win for the hosts. He bagged five wickets in an innings 22 times in his Test career and picked up 10 wickets in four matches. My answer is simple he was only bowler in Windies squad who can clock 150 KMPH consistently and with this great velocity he could bowl inswing, outswing , bouncer, yorker,revere swing etc etc. At 5 feet 9 inches, he was not tall for a fast bowler but he compensated for that by his fast paced sprint to the bowling crease and the high speed of his bowling arm. In my opinion, even without experiencing much more of them than YouTube highlights, the best Test fast bowler ever was Malcolm Marshall. Speaking of his cricket career stats, it includes 376 Test wickets, 1,810 runs, 92 top scores, and a batting average of 18.85. The world saw the last of Malcolm Marshall with the ball, and Viv Richards with the bat. He also played and coached Natal in South Africa. Malcolm Marshall bowled with an angular run-up instead of a straight run-up. He succumbed to the disease after a brief battle, on  November 4, 1999. Primarily a fast bowler, Marshall is regarded as one of the finest and fastest pacemen ever to have played Test cricket. The world saw the last of Malcolm Marshall with the ball, and Viv Richards with the bat. The world’s best cricketers in the world had the time and the inclination to hone their skills on the county circuit. Malcolm combined all of the positive attributes of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and simply became the one of the best, if not indeed the best, fast bowlers in the world. I said `wow' - I had never seen such a thing before.". Malcolm Marshall made the 1983 Kanpur Test memorable for West Indies Earlier that day, Marshall scored 92 and alongwith Gordon Greenidge put on a … The same book says that both Frank Tyson and Brian Statham were timed at just under 90mph (144.8kph). The list goes on. By Oli Fisher. Thus, he possessed in his arsenal all the weapons of trade and, more importantly, knew the opportune times for using them. Back in 2009, Ben Dobson wrote about Malcolm Marshall, a smiling Bajan revered as one of the world’s greatest-ever fast bowlers. In the first Test at Kanpur, he helped skipper Lloyd to steady the innings with a knock of 92 after which claimed four wickets in each innings. Wasim Akram mentions about Marshall in one of his interviews "His skills were to pick the mistakes of batsmen straight away and spot their weaknesses". The sharpness in the air would not have helped the ball swing but Malcolm Marshall would still have bowled brilliantly. Primarily a fast bowler, Marshall is regarded as the Greatest and most accomplished Fast bowler of Modern Era in Test cricket. Marshall ended with 376 wickets, a West Indian record till Walsh went past him seven years later. The Marshall bouncer tended to skid on to you. No one can forget his bowling spell of 7/53 against England with broken left hand and then bat only with his right hand. The memory is as clear as if it had been yesterday, instead of 11 years ago at Old Trafford, on the last day of June 1988. In this game; bowling, fielding and batting are equally important. He is often acknowledged as the greatest West Indian fast bowler of all time, and certainly one of the most complete fast bowlers the cricketing world ever saw. And when the West Indies bowled in the second innings, he opened the attack with his hand still in cast and bowled 26 overs to pick up 7/53! }. Share on Twitter Tweet. Malcolm Marshall made the 1983 Kanpur Test memorable for West Indies Earlier that day, Marshall scored 92 and alongwith Gordon Greenidge put on a … MALCOLM MARSHALL exemplified West Indies' cricket at its very best. But he actually races to the crease when he's at top pace. One of his victims was Mike Gatting, whose nose was rearranged by a vicious bouncer in the opening One-Day International between the West Indies and England on February 18, 1986. The second was the fact that a high percentage (63.30%) of his 376 victims from 81 Tests were top order batsmen. However, for the player concerned, it was a shattering experience. Marshall immediately made his presence felt in county cricket and benefitted immensely from pitting his skills against the best batsmen in the world. Do you want to unsubscribe Newsletter/Alerts? During the pink-ball Test in Kolkata last year, I thought India's fast bowlers went overboard with the bouncer, and thanks to concussion subs, the game ended with Bangladesh's second-innings scorecard featuring 12 batsmen and two DNBs: I think umpires do need to step in more when fast bowlers constantly bounce tailenders. Malcolm had a heart of a lion. Marshall ended with 376 wickets, a West Indian record till Walsh went past him seven years later. The entire bowl coming at him from 1976 onwards was the period when the opportunity arose the in. 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