Malcom Marshall - The Fearsome Bowler

 Malcolm Marshall was born on 18 April 1958 in Barbados. He died on 4 November 1999 due to cancer at the age of 41. The Barbadian cricketer was primarily a fast bowler.  Marshall is widely regarded as one of the greatest and of most accomplished fast bowlers of the modern era in Test cricket. 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. Batsmen agreed that Marshall was the hardest of all to face because of the way he used his ordinary height to produce telling rather than exceptional bounce. His father was killed in a road accident when he was a baby, and he learned the game from his grandfather as well as at the beach and the playground. He began as a batsman and then discovered his ability to strike back.
His Test bowling average of 20.94 is the best of anyone who has taken 200 or more wickets. He achieved his bowling success despite being, by the standards of other fast bowlers of his time, a short man – he stood at 5 ft 11 in, while most of the great quicks have been well above 6 ft and many great West Indian fast bowlers, such as Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, were 6 ft 6 in or above. He generated fearsome pace from his bowling action, with a dangerous bouncer. He also statistically went on to become the most successful test match bowler of the 1980s with 235 scalps with an average of 18.47 within a time period of just five years.
In the 2^nd Test against Pakistan at Lahore in 1986, Malcolm Marshall bowled a superb spell of 5for 33 in the first innings and bundle out Pakistan at Just 131 on a flat track. Mohsin Khan, Rizwan-uz-Zaman, Qasim Umar, Asif Mujtaba, and Wasim Akram were the victims of Marshall Bowling. In the 2^nd innings, he also took 1 for 14. Eventually, West Indies won the Test match by an innings of 10 runs. Let’s watch the Marshall first innings spell of 5 for 33.
Malcolm Marshall was also a very dangerous lower middle-order batsman with ten Test fifties and seven first-class centuries. He ended his career as the all-time highest wicket-taker for West Indies in test cricket with 376 wickets, a record which he held up until November 1998 before Courtney Walsh surpassed his milestone. It was his willingness to work hard at his game that made Malcolm Marshall supreme even in a great generation. He was a relentlessly probing and thoughtful opponent
In 2009, Marshall was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. To mark 150 years of the Cricketers' Wisden named him in an all-time Test World XI. Malcolm Marshall was relentlessly professional and determined; and he was also the best batsman of the group, coming nearer than any recent West Indian to being an all-rounder of the quality of Garry Sobers. Though batsmen feared him, he was exceptionally popular among his peers: his death was mourned throughout the cricket world, but his fellow professionals, who knew him best, were most deeply affected.