ON THIS DAY
Follow UsThe only reason most bowlers never complained about physical disadvantage for their lack of quality bowling was Malcolm Marshall. Despite the unparalleled physicality of Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh, and Curtly Ambrose, it was a 5’11” Marshall who often ran the show, thus keeping cricket as much a technical game as it was physical back in the 1980s.
Whether it was his tale of bravery during the West Indies’ 1984 tour of England, where he took seven wickets with a plastered hand, or his career-best spell of 7 for 22 on a spin-friendly Old Trafford track four years later, where bounce had little role to play, what separated Marshall from the others in his generation was adaptability.
He could bowl in any condition, measure a batter’s weaknesses in a flash and set the field accordingly, and he could do all these while swinging the ball at a pace never seen before in cricket.
While Marshall excelled in Australian and English conditions, he has 36 and 35 scalps to his name on Indian and Pakistani soil, respectively. The best example was during the West Indies tour of India immediately after their ‘83 World Cup final loss. A peak Marshall had decimated the Indian team in their backyard by taking 33 wickets in six Tests as the visitors won 3-0.
The most notable spell of those 33 wickets came on October 22, 1983. Batting first, West Indies soared to 454 runs on Day 1 itself, riding on Gordon Greenidge’s stupendous 194, followed by a supreme knock of 92 by Marshall while batting at number eight.
India boasted of a world-class top-order in Sunil Gavaskar, Anshuman Gaekwad, Mohinder Amarnath and Dilip Vengsarkar, most of whom had returned to huge welcome after winning the World Cup against the same West Indies team. Hence, a robust batting display at home was anticipated.
The Indian team first faced an emerging Malcolm Marshall in 1978 when captain Alvin Kallicharran toured the subcontinent with a weak West Indies team. Their following face-off came in the ‘83 World Cup, where Marshall hardly hit form against a rejuvenated Indian side.
However, the third time was the charm, and the Kanpur crowd was about to witness it. The legendary Gavaskar was caught behind for a duck on the second ball of the innings as Marshall silenced the crowd in an instance. Coming in to bat at 0 for 1, Amarnath got out LBW for a duck a few deliveries later, as the fans stared at the scoreboard in disbelief that read 0 for 2.
Marshall had just batted for 188 minutes and was the last batsman to get out, but there was not one ounce of tiredness in him as he came in with an outswinger that saw Gaekwad poking the ball to the wicketkeeper. With India standing on 9 for 3, things couldn’t have seemingly gotten any worse when Marshall came in with a slinger that massacred Vengsarkar’s stumps and reduced India to 18 for 4.
The hosts were all-out for 207 and asked to follow on. The second innings saw Marshall getting the first four wickets yet again, with Roger Binny replacing Amarnath at No.3 this time as the latter decided to come down. India lost the match by an innings and 83 runs.
He would go on to take 15 wickets in the remaining five Tests, handing India a thumping defeat and, more importantly, a reality check.
Marshall retired from international cricket 32 years back, and no fast bowler has managed to sustain pace alongside such excellence to date. A supreme athlete with unreal balance, Marshall was a thinking man in a pack of brute, blood-thirsty pacers.
England was, undoubtedly, his favourite hunting country. Not only has Marshall taken a whopping 232 Test wickets against England in 26 matches, he had ended up with 132 wickets to his name in a single county season of ‘82 while playing for Hampshire - a record still unmatched.
Marshall could generate extraordinary bounce from an ordinary height that scared batsmen to death, and his skiddy bowling was so devastatingly effective that rarely any batsman had an answer. If these weren’t enough, Marshall’s deliveries on the bodyline coming from round the wicket were the stuff that nightmares are made of.
While he wasn’t much of a threat with the white ball, he transformed into a Chimera when the colour changed. He retired with 376 wickets in 81 Tests, which had 19 four-wicket hauls, 22 five-wicket hauls and four 10-wicket hauls to his name. Apart from the two seven-fers against England, Marshall also had a seven-wicket haul against New Zealand.
Cricket got way poorer when the enigmatic bowling talent passed away at 41 due to colon cancer.
