Fast & Furious, Fearless and Ferocious: The Legacy of West Indian Pace Attack
If you haven't seen the Indian Bollywood movie adaptation of the 1983 ODI Cricket World Cup, I highly recommend watching it, at least for one particular scene; which is within 15 minutes of the start of the movie if not the entire plot. Let me take you to that scene where some members of the Indian contingent go to watch a practice session where the West Indian bowlers are bowling before the beginning of the World Cup. The character of Roger Binny starts describing the West Indian fast bowlers, starting with Michael Holding – “The Whispering Death,” followed by Andy Roberts – “The Hitman,” then Malcolm Marshall, the shortest but the fastest, and finally Joel Garner – “The Big Bird.” The character of Kris Srikkanth pauses him and says, "Shut up man. We are here to watch cricket, not a horror movie." That scene summed up for me how lethal those four could be.
I was hardly born in 1983 to follow them closely; however, I had one
chance of seeing Marshall bowl to Sachin before the 1992 World Cup in a
tri-series hosted by Australia, involving West Indies as well. It was a delight
to see a great career sunset for Marshall and something special in the making
of the greatest ever, Sachin Tendulkar. The innings where Tendulkar took on the
West Indian bowlers, which not only included Marshall but also Curtly Ambrose,
was the first glimpse that showed the world how Sachin could easily play those
fast bowlers.
Rewinding to the late '70s and early '80s, I didn’t have the privilege to
either see or hear these fast bowlers. I relied completely on YouTube to unveil
their mastery and greatness. I started watching cricket around the start of the
’90s; by then, all of these great West Indian fast bowlers were not around and
had completed their careers. But, while growing up with a newfound hobby of
following cricket, I read almost a million articles from cricket pundits
worldwide talking about the skills and greatness of these bowlers. At the turn
of the millennium, once you had access to archives and the internet, you could
then realize the true mastery of these bowlers.
I
read about a series in India when West Indies toured India in 1983-1984, titled
the “Revenge Series” for avenging the 1983 World Cup final loss. The West
Indies not only won that series 3-0 but inflicted so much damage it was hard to
fathom. India lost two out of three matches by an innings, and that too on the
flattest of tracks in Kanpur and Kolkata. You have to look at the scorecards to
realize that it wasn’t the West Indian spinners who broke the Indian batting;
it was the likes of Holding, Roberts, and Marshall, along with their other fast
bowling partners, who took almost all the Indian 20 wickets to fall. No
offense, but Larry Gomes was the sole spinner, just there to get clicked in
team photographs. After that test series, the West Indies ensured India
couldn’t win a single ODI. It is hard even to imagine India losing a test
series so badly, at least not in this era that too at home.
Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Garner, Benjamin, Croft – this list never ends
for the West Indies fast bowlers of that era. Their collective prowess and
unyielding aggression ensured that the West Indies remained a cricketing
powerhouse throughout the decade, setting a standard that future generations
would aspire to emulate.
The baton was duly passed on to the likes of Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh,
and Ian Bishop who had terrorized the batsmen in the last decade of the 20th
century, with almost 1000 wickets among three of them. If any bowlers instilled
fear among any batsmen for the physical damage a bowler can cause, it must be
the deadly quartet of these Fast, Furious & Fearless men.
-
Madhur Kapoor (Cricket Enthusiast)
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