Umpires were sometimes as unnerved as batsmen. Tommy Spencer did not dare judge Nigel Cowley lbw from the last ball of Procter’s wonder-over at Southampton because it would have meant 5 wickets in six balls—instead of a mere 4 in five—3 of them trapped in front. At Cheltenham against Yorkshire, Richard Lumb, Bill Athey and John Hampshire were all given out lbw by Kenny Palmer, who said after the sixth ball: ‘Over, and thank fuck for that.’ Boycott was the non-striker and says they were all stone dead. He likes to add that Sir Len Hutton said ruefully, ‘The good player were at t’other end.’
Along with these two, my own favourite was John Snow, who was different again. Goodness knows what made him tick but only rarely did it seem to be bowling. Sometimes it was as if he was playing cricket under protest—the title of his book is Rebel Without a Cause—and they used to say he was a bit of loner. I’d say his mind had other interests that didn’t necessarily marry with a game of cricket and on the days when the two collided, it looked like he didn’t give a damn. Anyway, he was frequently alone in an England shirt: wasn’t it always just Snow? Or was it always Snow and everyone else? Snow and Higgs, Snow and Brown, Snow and Jones, Snow and Ward or Willis, Snow and Lever, Knight, Price, Old, Hendrick—a whole raft of them. Lucky old Fred Trueman, I say, to have had Brian Statham. And lucky old Statham to have had Frank Tyson.
I was umbilically attached to the screen when this vicar’s son from the parish of Pershore Vale bowled for England and I said many a prayer in his favour. I can still see that little stutter at the top of his shortish run and then the break into a rhythm that was without apparent strain and certainly without self-importance. He was more front-on than Lillee, much more side-on than Procter. He was less swing bowler than lethal seam and bounce bowler. His right shoulder, arm and wrist operated in perfect harmony with the left side of his body to give a whiplash effect that snared the very best. He won the Ashes that I had listened to by wireless in 1970–71, with help from Geoffrey I should add, who was at his very best. Ray Illingworth loved ‘Snowball’ and wrapped him in cotton wool until the Test matches, at which point he unleashed him on Bill Lawry’s Australians. Indeed, so great was the ‘Snowball’ effect that by the end of the tour the opposition had become Ian Chappell’s Australians.
The short ball that hit Terry Jenner in the head caused a right old barney. Illingworth defended his man and tactic in a rousing set-to with umpire Lou Rowan. The crowd grabbed hold of the vicar’s son on the edge of the boundary, before bombarding him with bottles, cans and partially eaten pies. Fearing for the safety of his players, Illingworth then led his team from the field of play without permission from the umpires, returning after seven minutes when the ground was cleared and the crowd settled. Later, when recalling the emotive nature of the tour, Basil D’Oliveira said to Snow that the ultimate thing in life was to play for England. Snow pointed out that ‘the ultimate thing in life was death’.
I toured with him once to the Middle East, in the days before Sharjah and Dubai routinely attracted cricketers, and instead of watching the bat while fielding I found myself entranced by his run-up and action. At 40, he still had whatever ‘it’ is, and those few days spent on the field of play with him are among the most treasured of my time in the game. I bump into him occasionally and am still in awe. A single observation from John Snow is worth a thousand words from many a pretender. Two hundred and two Test-match wickets at 26.66 don’t tell the story. At least, not all of it. Ask the batsmen. Ian Chappell puts Snowball alongside Andy Roberts as the best fast bowler he faced.
THE WEST INDIANS
No reflection on fast bowling during the past 50 years can be complete without an appreciation of the West Indians. These men made the heart beat faster and the hairs rise on the back of the neck. They gave rise to opinion, both positive and not so positive, and changed the modern game. It is rare now to see an attack outside the subcontinent made up of fewer than four fast bowlers. But none of these attacks, with the arguable exception of England’s in the glorious summer of 2005, can be broken down into such an impressive array of component parts. Sure, they bowled hostile and fast. But they bowled with brains and beauty, too.
Collectively, West Indian fast bowlers have spread fear. Individually, they spread the gospel of the game with warmth and knowledge. At Hampshire matches, umpire Ken Palmer used to say ‘Give me Maco, captain. I like to hear him coming, boy. I like the pitter-patter of them tiny feet and then whoosh, he’s gone. I love him, boy, get him down my end and the game will move forward nice and quick.’ So I did.
Marshall learnt from the teachers before him. First among these was Roberts. ‘I am a warrior,’ said Andy. ‘I have a job to do and when I go on the field I have no friends. If a batsman gets injured, it is very difficult for me to go and look at him because if he gets up again the very next ball may be another bouncer. No, the sympathy is in here,’ he said, tapping his chest. ‘You may not see it but it is here.’ Roberts wishes he was remembered for his outswinger but knows that the two-speed bouncers for which he is famous made the legend. He was a careful planner with a photographic memory and made fools of batsmen who took the first, easy-paced bouncer for granted. Immensely strong shoulders allowed him to maintain a short-pitched barrage longer than most. Clive Lloyd recalls a particularly vicious assault on him during a Shell Shield match in Guyana. The next morning, a bruised and weary Lloyd asked his mate what it was about.
‘For hooking me for six in Dominica,’ said Andy.
‘Christ,’ replied Lloyd, ‘that was five years ago.’
Michael Holding talks about the Roberts brain, the way he studied batsmen and measured their strengths and weaknesses. He recalls a Test in India that Andy missed through illness: ‘He sent out a message for me to bowl around the wicket to Syed Kirmani and pitch it up at leg-stump. I had unconditional faith in him so I did just that and next over Kirmani lost his leg stump.’
I played one game for Hampshire with Roberts at Basingstoke in 1978 and caught my first catch off him at first slip, low by my left boot. Jim Foat was the batsman. Roberts rushed over to me and then told the captain to pick me for every game. Imagine it: caught Nicholas, bowled Roberts. There are a few more caught Nicholas, bowled Marshalls, I’m relieved to say.
Holding just bowled bloody fast. He was a beautiful athlete, born of running, jumping and hurdling—a consequence of which was the accurate placement of his front foot so that he was never confronted, or restricted, by no balls. An intelligent man, he soon became an intelligent bowler. ‘As far as I am concerned bowling is about action and reaction,’ he has said. ‘What do I need to do now to combat that action by the batsman? That’s what I’m thinking about when I walk back to my mark. It is a continuous process. Remember what has gone before and apply it.’ With time he developed wider skills, nipping the ball off the seam and offering occasional reminders of his extreme pace to keep the enemy honest.
Of all the Holding stories, the one about the over to Boycott in Barbados in March 1981 is the best. Our favourite Yorkshireman, the gentleman from Fitzwilliam whose Mum could bat better in her pinny, prepared for this moment by batting indoors on a polished wooden floor to replicate the sheen and speed of a Barbados pitch. It took six balls for Holding to prove it a worthless exercise. The first gloved him, the second beat him, the third zipped into his thigh, the fourth hammered the splice, the fifth homed in on his throat until a padded thumb intervened, and the sixth knocked his off dolly most of the way back to Jeffrey Dujon. Bridgetown exploded. Boycott claims it was an unplayable over. Gooch was at the other end—the best place to play fast bowling, said Len Hutton—and doesn’t argue the point. Legend suggests it is the best over by a fast bowler in the modern age of the game. Holding won’t hear of it and says he bowled a better one to the Chappell brothers in a WSC match, when he got rid of both. Boycott went away and studied the grainy footage, shot from high above wide mid-on, before coming back stronger.
As if Holding wasn’t enough, at a team meeting befo
re the First Test of that tour, Boycott asked Botham how to score off Joel Garner. ‘You don’t,’ was the reply. ‘No one does.’
‘Really? Christ,’ replied Geoffrey, ‘I’ll go to bed then.’
Garner’s great gift was length. From his 6 feet 10 inches plus the distance of his long arm extended to the perpendicular, Garner could make a ball of good length feel like a bouncer. It got ‘big’ as cricketers like to say and hit the bat so hard it jarred the bottom hand, taking a heavy toll of the right-forefinger knuckle and the base of the right thumb. Then, having forced the enemy back, came the deadly yorker. Nobody before or since has bowled a yorker like the Big Bird, nobody: hard to pick and harder to play, this was the ace in his potent pack. When Garner and Marshall were in tandem at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, another game was being played. Add Wayne Daniel and Sylvester Clarke into the Barbados mix and you will find that even Viv Richards left empty-handed. Fast bowlers are gold.
MALCOLM MARSHALL
Go to the Kensington Oval and you will find the ground has been generally overhauled in the name of modernism. The pitch is markedly slower than the days when only Perth matched its carry. The two ends by the sightscreens have been named after Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner. They were without compare as bowlers, especially on this field. Joel remains the most wonderful man; Malcolm has moved on. He did so too young. He was my best friend in cricket and I miss him most days. I shall never forget Robin Smith calling me with the dreadful news. I was on a train in Europe and shed tears for the remainder of the journey. Maco was loyal, Maco was honest, Maco was strong, Maco was talented, Maco was sensitive and Maco was fun. Now Maco was dead.
I well recall our last conversation. He was shored up in Southampton, sick and weak, before returning to Barbados. I should have driven down to see him but for some reason did not. How I regret that. We talked about the usual stuff—cricket, family, another damp English summer fading from memory, the Bajan sun and, of course, his cancer of the colon. At the end of the call he said, ‘Goodbye, Markie,’ and I sensed he meant goodbye, not au revoir. His voice was thin and he didn’t linger. He just said, ‘Goodbye, Markie,’ and fourteen unforgettable years of friendship and crusades were over.
Connie, his wife, asked me to do the eulogy. The Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Hall in Barbados was turned into a place of worship for the day and welcomed 2000 friends. The service was broadcast live all over the Caribbean. There was prayer and thanksgiving and music and song. The coffin sat in front of us, Maco peaceful at last inside. Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge bathed him in his final weeks and said I would not want to have seen the bag of bones he had become. For that reason I did not attend the public file past the open coffin the previous day.
I followed Viv to the lectern. He had retired early from his own reading, unable to cope, a mighty figure beaten down by grief. Before leaving my seat, I took a swig of brandy in the hope of settling my heavy and pounding heart. I walked past the coffin, removed my sunglasses and took the speech from my inside jacket pocket. I placed it on the lectern and looked out.
I saw only sadness. First I saw Joel and Desmond, broken men. Then I locked eyes with Andy Roberts and Curtly Ambrose, bleeding men. I noticed Tony Cozier and Prof Edwards, devastated men. I saw Connie and Mali, Maco’s son, hearts broken. I saw shuffling in seats and heard coughing. I sensed the trauma. I saw many white handkerchiefs brought to faces, though they might as well have been waving surrender.
I started. I did my best. I finished. I was proud of that. Goodbye, Maco.
Wes Hall followed. Wes the preacher man, not Wes the cricketer. This is how he began. ‘Malcolm Denzil Marshall is the greatest fast bowler who ever lived. I know this because I am Wesley Hall, and the one thing Wesley Hall truly knows about is faaaast bowling!’
A few fast bowlers might be thought of as the best ever. In the modern age of the game, Marshall and Lillee are the two who tend to receive most votes. Others mentioned in this breath are Dale Steyn, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath, Curtly Ambrose and Richard Hadlee. Fred Trueman would win support, not least his own, as would Alan Davidson and Ray Lindwall, two Australians whose records brook no argument and about whom friend and foe speak in fabled tongue. Going back into the mist of time it is S.F. Barnes who, though not fast, has the figures to beat all figures.
Hall was quite entitled, especially at this moment, to make a decision on behalf of everyone. I think the best thing I can do in illustration of Hall’s opinion is tell a story in the present tense exactly as I have recalled it many times before. It is a true story, with only the tiniest hints of poetic licence.
Bournemouth, June 1985
The top two teams in the County Championship are at each other’s throats. Having the best of the match, we set Middlesex 265 to win in the fourth innings and quickly reduce them to 38 for 3. Clive Radley has arrived in the middle. He nudges a couple and nurdles a couple more. He is urging his inexperienced partner, Keith Tomlins, to fight on. From the fifth ball of an over, Tomlins finds a single that means Radley must face Marshall for the first time in the innings. We have an attacking field set—four slips, gully and square cover on the off side; forward short leg, leg gully and long leg on the on side. You have to earn Radley’s wicket; he gives you nothing. He is heavily protected by the usual gear plus a couple of thigh pads, chest guard and armguard.
Maco is at the end of his run. He has taken 5 wickets in the first innings and just trapped Roland Butcher lbw in the second. Right at that moment he is indisputably the best bowler in the world. Just as relevant, he has injured more batsmen than any of his contemporaries. His pace is electrifying and the way the ball skids when pitched short is life-threatening. He is the talk of the county game. Day in, day out; week in, week out, he swings the ball both ways and is a master of length on pitches that do not necessarily suit him. This is one.
There is invariably tension when he is brought on to bowl. You can’t be sure what will happen but you think something will. It might be skilful, it might be violent, more often than not it is game-changing. Everybody watches—that is, everybody.
He turns at the end of his run and begins an aggressive sprint, legs working hard, arms operating as pistons, eyes narrowed. At the halfway mark he has found the perfect rhythm and now, 10 yards or so from the crease, appears to be relaxed and at around about full pace. The bars have emptied; the gatemen peer through gaps in the old splintered bleachers. Even the dressing-room attendant takes a breather and diverts his attention from the tea-break to the middle.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Maco stops.
We all stop, and look to him.
‘Cappy, cappy,’ he shouts to me at first slip. ‘I want Cardy across from leg gully, man, I want he across. Cardy, Cardy, you move, man, Cardy . . .’ He is screaming these instructions.
We are all aghast.
‘Cappy, cappy.’
And I run 50 yards to meet him.
‘I want Cardy across, skip, I want he away from leg gully, to a close position on the off side.’ He says all this in the thickest of Bajan accents. I am first among interpreters. Thankfully, I get it. ‘Fine, you put ’em where you want ’em.’ And back I go to first slip.
Cardigan Connor, an Anguillan and second among interpreters, is at leg gully. ‘Come across, Cardy,’ shouts Maco, ‘to the off side, close, near Radley. Closer man, tight, come tight, squarer, tighter, stop, stop, there, Cardy, you got it, there.’
Radley looks confused, certainly flustered. One can only imagine the palms of his hands and the sweat on his brow.
Connor is now at silly point on the off side, 2 yards from the bat. Paul Terry asks if I think Cardy is safe. It’s a good question. Certainly, a short ball outside off stump and a square-cut in response spell danger.
I shout: ‘Are you sure, Maco? Is he okay there?’
‘He’s fine. Trust me, Cappy, he fine. Cardy, you’re fine.’
Maco, a name that suddenly appears sinisterly apt, returns to his mark.
We all return to where we were a minute or so ago.
He turns again and begins the sprint. This movement and the action that follows are a piece of sporting precision, like the mechanical detail in an expensive watch where the moving parts come together as one and create something fluent, accurate and beautiful . . . Arms working, legs pumping . . .
He is at full tilt now, the gold pendant around his neck swinging hypnotically in the early summer sun. He reaches the crease, body perfectly aligned, eyes level, head steady, fingertips loose down each side of the seam of the ball, thumb tucked underneath it. He lets fly. The ball is fast and rips back into Radley from a tad back of a length. It traps him in no-man’s-land—prodding, poking, jumping. Trapped. The ball zips from the bat’s inside edge onto the thigh pad and pops up to Connor at silly point.
Radley, caught Connor, bowled Marshall, as planned. Another one bites the dust: another one comes and another one goes, another one bites the dust. Maco goes on a victory dance. Demented, we chase him. Connor is beside himself.
Radley has gone. Phillipe-Henri Edmonds is on his way out. Tim Tremlett arrives from long leg to join the party. ‘We’re playing cricket on earth and he’s buggering about in the universe,’ says Tim as we all kiss and cuddle. ‘Why do we need Tim at long leg?’ I wonder. The ricochet off the helmet, I suppose.
‘How many wickets is that for the season, Maco?’ asks Greenidge.
‘Forrrty-nine . . .’ And Maco turns to the pavilion, nods at Edmonds who is now halfway to the middle, and says, ‘Look, here comes 50!’
It is the end of the over; we have six balls to wait for more. In the interim, Tomlins and Edmonds take 8 from the over bowled by Raj Maru. Then Edmonds is on strike to Marshall for the first time.
A Beautiful Game Page 21
