Malcolm Marshall

Malcolm Denzil Marshall (18 April 1958 – 4 November 1999) was a Barbadian cricketer.

Primarily a fast bowler, Marshall is widely regarded as one of the greatest and one of the 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.

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 180 cm, while most of the great quicks have been well above 183 cm and many great West Indian fast bowlers, such as Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose, and Courtney Walsh, were 197 cm or above.

He generated fearsome pace from his bowling action, with a dangerous bouncer.

He grew up in the parish of Saint Michael, Barbados and was educated at St Giles Boys' School from 1963 to 1969 and then at Parkinson Comprehensive from 1969 to 1973.

He was partly taught cricket by his grandfather, who helped to bring him up after his father's death.

He idolised legendary West Indies allrounder Sir Garfield Sobers at his young age and he started admiring Sobers after watching the magnificent test century by Sobers against New Zealand in 1972.

He played cricket for the Banks Brewery team from 1976.

His first representative match was a 40-over affair for West Indies Young Cricketers against their English equivalents at Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago in August 1976.

He made nought and his eight overs disappeared for 53 runs.

Marshall's initial senior appearance was a Geddes Grant/Harrison Line Trophy (List A) match for Barbados on 13 February 1978; again he got out without scoring and did not take a wicket.

Four days later, he made his first-class debut against Jamaica, and whilst he failed to score runs, he claimed 6–77 in the Jamaican first innings.

On the back of this single first-class appearance he was selected to tour India in 1978/79, many first-choice West Indian stars being unavailable having committed themselves to playing World Series Cricket.

Marshall heard of his selection on the radio while working in the storeroom at Banks Brewery and later claimed he did not know where India was.

Marshall made his test début in the second test against India at Bangalore on 15 December 1978.

He immediately developed a career-long antipathy to Dilip Vengsarkar due to his aggressive appealing.

Despite doing little of note in the three Tests he played on that tour, he did take 37 wickets in all first-class games, and Hampshire saw enough in him to take him on as their overseas player as a successor to Andy Roberts for 1979, remaining with the county until 1993.

He was in West Indies' World Cup squad, but did not play a match in the tournament.

Hampshire were not doing well at the time, but nevertheless he took 47 first-class wickets, as well as picking up 5–13 against Glamorgan in the John Player League.

He also statistically went on to become the most successful Test match bowler of the 1980s with 235 wickets with an average of 18.47 within a time period of just five years.

Marshall came to prominence in 1980, when in the third Test at Old Trafford he accounted for Mike Gatting, Brian Rose, and Peter Willey in short order to spark an England collapse, although the match was eventually drawn despite Marshall taking 3–36 (and 2–116 in the second innings).

After 1980/81 he was out of the Test side for two years, but an excellent 1982 season with Hampshire when he took 134 wickets at under 16 apiece, including a career-best 8–71 against Worcestershire, saw him recalled and thereafter he remained a fixture until the end of his international career.

As of 2022 Marshall's performance in 1982 remains the highest haul of first-class wickets by any bowler in an English season for over fifty years, since a reduction in the annual number of County Championship matches in 1969.

In seven successive Test series from 1982/83 to 1985/86 he took 21 or more wickets each time, in the last five of them averaging under 20.

In 1982, he signed a one-year contract with Melbourne Sub-District side Moorabbin and he eventually became the first active international cricketer to sign up for the Sub-District league.

Marshall was reportedly approached by the Moorabbin officials during the first test match between Australia and West Indies at Melbourne after learning that Marshall was interested in playing domestic cricket in Australia.

At the peak of his career, he turned down an offer of US$1 million to join a rebel West Indies team on a tour to South Africa, still suffering international sporting isolation due to apartheid.

Marshall was a part of the West Indies team that reached the 1983 Cricket World Cup Final, but lost to India by 43 runs.

Marshall was also a very dangerous lower middle-order batsman with ten Test fifties and seven first-class centuries.

His most productive series in this period was the 1983/84 rubber against India, when he claimed 33 wickets as well as averaging 34 with the bat and making his highest Test score of 92 at Kanpur.

A few months later he took five in an innings twice at home against Australia.

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.

In 2009, Marshall was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

To mark 150 years of the Cricketers' Almanack, Wisden named him in an all-time Test World XI.

Marshall was born in Bridgetown, Barbados.

His father, Denzil DeCoster Edghill, also a cricketer who played for Kingspark cricket club in St. Philip and the son of Claudine Edghill and Guirdwood Ifill, was a policeman; he died in a traffic accident when Marshall was one year old.

His mother was Eleanor Welch.

Malcolm had three half-brothers and three half-sisters.