Tigers_eye
April 4, 2006, 02:49 PM
Some of you may not know about the great WI fast bowlers. Following is a treat for those who want to know.
Malcolm Marshall:
Marshall had all the toys and he knew how and when to play with them. His strike rate of 46.22 was phenomenal, his average of 20.95 equally so. He may well have been the finest fast bowler of them all.
He reserved his best figures for England. In 1984, he broke his left thumb while fielding early in the match, but first of all batted one-handed, hitting a boundary and allowing Larry Gomes to complete a century, and then, with his left hand encased in plaster, he shrugged off the pain to take 7 for 53. Four years later, on an Old Trafford wicket prepared specifically for spinners, he adjusted his sights, pitched the ball up, and swung and cut it to such devastating effect that he took 7 for 22. Let that be a lesson, he seemed to be saying, and indeed it was.
on the 1980 tour he secured a Test place and at Manchester was instrumental in causing a collapse of seven wickets for 24. It began to be noted that, although not physically imposing - he was 5ft 11in - he had a natural balance and athleticism. Furthermore, he applied himself to his craft. In 1982, he was devastating, taking 134 wickets for Hampshire - a figure no one else touched in county cricket in the last 32 years of the century - and building a reputation as the bowler best avoided by anyone with a sense of self-preservation.
Joel Garner:
Batsmen would say that the overriding feeling when first confronted by the Big Bird was that he would trample on them such was the foreshortening effect of his 6ft 8 inches. Delivered from the clouds it seemed, and at a lively pace that when the mood took could be cranked up to the brisk side of rapid, the ball would rear alarmingly from barely short of a length. Allied to that was the most devastating toe crunching yorker the game had seen since that of Charlie Griffith. Of the top wicket-takers, few have a lower average than his parsimonious 20.98. In one-day cricket, particularly in the overs at the end of an innings, when the unhittable yorker speared in relentlessly, he was priceless. At Lord's in 1979 he simply blew England's slim hopes away with 5 for 38, the best figures ever in a World Cup final.
Michael Holding:
It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotizing its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerized. To the umpires he was malevolent stealth personified so they christened him Whispering Death. No-one in the game has bowled faster. His over to Geoff Boycott in the cauldron of Kensington Oval early in 1981 has gone down in history as the finest, fastest, most ferocious gambit of all time. Five years earlier, towards the end of the drought-ridden summer of 1976, The Oval had become a wasteland, parched beyond recognition, with slow flat heart-breaking pitches, and it was on this, in the final Test of the season, through the simple device of bowling ramrod-straight at high pace and to a full length, that he conjured 14 wickets for 149, the finest match figures ever by a West Indian.
Colin Croft:
"Crofty," a West Indian team-mate once said, "would bounce his grandmother if he thought there was a wicket in it." In a relatively brief career lasting just five years, he established a reputation as one of the most chilling of fast men, with no compunction whatsoever about inflicting pain. He was a fine bowler though and in 27 matches he managed 125 wickets - a remarkable haul in a side laden with high-class pace where the spoils tended to be spread. Best of all came in his second match where at Port-of-Spain he laid waste the Pakistan batting with 8 for 29, still the best figures by a West Indian fast bowler.
Andy Roberts:
Deadpan and deadly. Wicket or boundary, not a flicker of emotion would be evident save a gunslinger's narrowing of the eyes. Andy Roberts kept his emotions in check. But under the veneer was an intelligent cricketer with a fertile brain, plotting and planning the downfall of batsmen as if it were a military campaign. The modern West Indian game based on the heavy artillery of fast bowlers, that served so well for a quarter of a century, began with him. Here was a bowler whose pace came from timing, with power from a huge pair of shoulders. His bouncer was regarded as one of the most dangerous. He varied its pace, often setting batsmen up with a slower one and then poleaxing them when they were late on the quickie.
It took Roberts less than two and a half years to reach 100 Test wickets, the quickest at that point, and his best years were unquestionably in the middle 1970s.
Source Cricinfo.
Edited on, April 4, 2006, 7:53 PM GMT, by Cats_eye.
Malcolm Marshall:
Marshall had all the toys and he knew how and when to play with them. His strike rate of 46.22 was phenomenal, his average of 20.95 equally so. He may well have been the finest fast bowler of them all.
He reserved his best figures for England. In 1984, he broke his left thumb while fielding early in the match, but first of all batted one-handed, hitting a boundary and allowing Larry Gomes to complete a century, and then, with his left hand encased in plaster, he shrugged off the pain to take 7 for 53. Four years later, on an Old Trafford wicket prepared specifically for spinners, he adjusted his sights, pitched the ball up, and swung and cut it to such devastating effect that he took 7 for 22. Let that be a lesson, he seemed to be saying, and indeed it was.
on the 1980 tour he secured a Test place and at Manchester was instrumental in causing a collapse of seven wickets for 24. It began to be noted that, although not physically imposing - he was 5ft 11in - he had a natural balance and athleticism. Furthermore, he applied himself to his craft. In 1982, he was devastating, taking 134 wickets for Hampshire - a figure no one else touched in county cricket in the last 32 years of the century - and building a reputation as the bowler best avoided by anyone with a sense of self-preservation.
Joel Garner:
Batsmen would say that the overriding feeling when first confronted by the Big Bird was that he would trample on them such was the foreshortening effect of his 6ft 8 inches. Delivered from the clouds it seemed, and at a lively pace that when the mood took could be cranked up to the brisk side of rapid, the ball would rear alarmingly from barely short of a length. Allied to that was the most devastating toe crunching yorker the game had seen since that of Charlie Griffith. Of the top wicket-takers, few have a lower average than his parsimonious 20.98. In one-day cricket, particularly in the overs at the end of an innings, when the unhittable yorker speared in relentlessly, he was priceless. At Lord's in 1979 he simply blew England's slim hopes away with 5 for 38, the best figures ever in a World Cup final.
Michael Holding:
It began intimidatingly far away. He turned, and began the most elegant long-striding run of them all, feet kissing the turf silently, his head turning gently and ever so slightly from side to side, rhythmically, like that of a cobra hypnotizing its prey. Good batsmen tended not to watch him all the way lest they became mesmerized. To the umpires he was malevolent stealth personified so they christened him Whispering Death. No-one in the game has bowled faster. His over to Geoff Boycott in the cauldron of Kensington Oval early in 1981 has gone down in history as the finest, fastest, most ferocious gambit of all time. Five years earlier, towards the end of the drought-ridden summer of 1976, The Oval had become a wasteland, parched beyond recognition, with slow flat heart-breaking pitches, and it was on this, in the final Test of the season, through the simple device of bowling ramrod-straight at high pace and to a full length, that he conjured 14 wickets for 149, the finest match figures ever by a West Indian.
Colin Croft:
"Crofty," a West Indian team-mate once said, "would bounce his grandmother if he thought there was a wicket in it." In a relatively brief career lasting just five years, he established a reputation as one of the most chilling of fast men, with no compunction whatsoever about inflicting pain. He was a fine bowler though and in 27 matches he managed 125 wickets - a remarkable haul in a side laden with high-class pace where the spoils tended to be spread. Best of all came in his second match where at Port-of-Spain he laid waste the Pakistan batting with 8 for 29, still the best figures by a West Indian fast bowler.
Andy Roberts:
Deadpan and deadly. Wicket or boundary, not a flicker of emotion would be evident save a gunslinger's narrowing of the eyes. Andy Roberts kept his emotions in check. But under the veneer was an intelligent cricketer with a fertile brain, plotting and planning the downfall of batsmen as if it were a military campaign. The modern West Indian game based on the heavy artillery of fast bowlers, that served so well for a quarter of a century, began with him. Here was a bowler whose pace came from timing, with power from a huge pair of shoulders. His bouncer was regarded as one of the most dangerous. He varied its pace, often setting batsmen up with a slower one and then poleaxing them when they were late on the quickie.
It took Roberts less than two and a half years to reach 100 Test wickets, the quickest at that point, and his best years were unquestionably in the middle 1970s.
Source Cricinfo.
Edited on, April 4, 2006, 7:53 PM GMT, by Cats_eye.