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 2nd 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 2nd 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.
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