HOW WAS THE BOWLING OF MALCOLM MARSHALL LETHAL? [MOST DANGEROUS BOWLER OF THAT ERA]

The world of cricket will always favor 18th April because the world of cricket became more exciting and exciting thanks to Malcolm Marshall, born in Barbados on 18th April 1958.

Malcolm Marshall and Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding, and Colin Croft used to shiver batters from all over the world when West Indies fast bowlers were in world cricket. But among them, Malcolm Marshall was the most different and also the most different.

What kind of bowler Malcolm Marshall was can be gauged from the fact that he was the fastest among these dangerous bowlers.

When Marshall said goodbye to Test cricket in 1991, he had 376 wickets in 81 Test matches. The strike rate in his bowling was less than 47, while the average was over 20.

ANOTHER NAME FOR FEAR

In fact, from 1983 to 1991, Marshall was another name of fear for batters around the world. The reason for this was that the more deadly fast bowler Marshall was, the more easily he had control of his balls. So if you call him Brutal in terms of speed, he has to be called Ruthless in terms of accuracy.

In an international career of only about 13 years, Marshall played in international cricket for only about eight years. But in this, he made his fans all over the world.

USED TO PUT WEIGHT ON THE FEET

Michael Holding has also told an interesting thing about how much attention Marshall paid to his cricket and how he became more lethal and faster than the tall bowlers.

According to Holding, "Once we were playing cards, for some reason Maiko's full paint had slid up a bit. I saw she had weight strips on both legs. I was astounded; I asked why. When it happened, Maiko said that he always carries a lot of weight on his feet, when he is shopping, even when he is resting, so that the leg muscles get stronger."

Holding was astonished by his fellow cricketer's style of practice; he asked Malcolm how it feels when you open these strips during the match, then Malcolm Marshall told him that 'I can keep running all day. '

This is just an example of Marshall's career, then the addition of technology in the world of cricket had not increased so much. The battery of coaching staff was not behind every player, but Marshall had learned how to make himself an antidote through practice.

Therefore, in his run-up, when he reached the umpire while running, his speed was the same as the bullet, and when the ball left his hand with the use of the shoulder, he would reach the batsman at the speed of the bullet.

THE BOWLER WHO TESTS THE BATSMAN WITH A BOUNCER

Be it his leg cutter balls or the ball swinging outside the off-stump; it was a problem for the batsmen to face anyone. The special thing was that Marshall used to enjoy his bowling completely. That's why when he used to test the batsmen with his bouncers.

The accuracy of his bouncers was so high that most of the batsmen would get hurt on his balls. The marshal used to get a kind of pleasure after seeing the person in front of him battered. When he was ready to bowl round the wicket in the cricket field, the accuracy of his bouncers was greatly increased.

England batsman Mike Gatting's nose was broken by Marshall's bouncer. Wasim Akram had said in an interview, "Malcolm Marshall used to sense the weakness of any batting in just two balls; this specialty made him Marshall."

In the 81 Tests in which Marshall played, his team was able to win 43 Tests, and in these winning Tests, he took 254 wickets. In the presence of four fast bowlers, such dominance of a single bowler is rarely seen in the cricket world again.

WHEN GAVASKAR STARTED WEARING A SKULL CAP

Sunil Gavaskar, the evergreen batsman of the Indian cricket team, was very successful against the West Indies; he used to bat without a helmet in that era.

Gavaskar's fearlessness is exemplified all over the world, even today. In 1983, Marshall's bouncer hit Gavaskar on the head of the Indian team that toured the West Indies. However, Gavaskar had scored a century in this innings in front of the storm of Marshall, but only after that Gavaskar started wearing the skull cap.

After this, Gavaskar has also said that his sleep used to be lost due to the memory of Marshal.

Kapil Dev, a former Indian cricketer and one of the great all-rounders, has said about Marshall, "No one could have said which Marshall ball would hit your throat and which one would blow up the stump. On the pitch of Kanpur, I Saw one of his balls hit Gavaskar's arm, and the bat jumped in the air. I had never seen this before, so wow came out of my mouth."

BATTLE WITH DILIP VENGSARKAR

But Malcolm Marshall did not have any particular enmity with Gavaskar, nor did Marshall have any regrets about the hook shots of Indian cricketer Mohinder Amarnath. But Malcolm Marshall was very unhappy with India's stylish batsman in that era and Dilip Vengsarkar, who scored three consecutive centuries at Lord's. This bitterness reached the level of enmity.

Malcolm Marshall has named two chapters of this enmity in his autobiography 'Martial Arts.

Malcolm Marshall played the first Test of his career in Bangalore in 1978. Regarding this test, Marshall wrote, "The experience of my first Test innings was horrible. I was given out fraudulently, and I started crying while returning to the pavilion. I will never forget that moment and the players involved in it. I'll never be able to forget."

After all, what happened, due to which Marshall never wanted to forget this experience and what was the role of Vengsarkar in it.

TEARS CAME OUT AFTER TAKING THE CATCH OF VENGSARKAR

Marshall himself wrote about this, "The West Indies' score was 383 for seven on the second day of the match, then I came out to bat. I was not nervous at all. Chandrashekhar threw the fastball, the ball hit my pad, and suddenly I see Vengsarkar appealing for a bat-pad catch against me."

"I've never seen anything like this in my life. However, the umpire didn't give me out. After a ball or two, I played Chandra's spin with the pad forward; Vengsarkar appealed again; this time, the ball bounced off Vengsarkar's hands. But the umpire declared me out. My tears came out."

In the eyes of Marshal, Vengsarkar was responsible for this incident. Thus, he established Vengsarkar as a villain in his mind. Four years later, the Indian team was once again touring the West Indies.

STRUGGLE FOR NOT ALLOWING TO SCORE A CENTURY

During the 1982-83 tour, Malcolm Marshall had decided that he would not allow Vengsarkar to score a century in this series under any circumstances. As a result, Vengsarkar could not do much in the remaining matches of the series but reached near a century in St. John's Antigua.

The interesting details of this encounter have been written by Marshall in his autobiography. According to Marshall, he was ready to bowl at any level to prevent Vengsarkar from scoring a century. But in that era, Vengsarkar was also one of the top batsmen in the world, so this match became exciting.

Marshall wrote, "I was trying to bowl more quickly in this match. During this time, I saw Vengsarkar repeatedly telling the umpire that I am overstepping and bowling no-ball. This doesn't seem right. Yes, it made me very angry. If they were doing it to provoke me, they would have succeeded in that."

"Though he was scoring runs consistently. Watching Vengsarkar reach 60, 70, and 81. Our fight turned interesting. I bowled him to a precise bouncer, who hit his helmet. It shook him, I thought. Now he might not be thinking positively, but he was ready to respond. He hit three boundaries in the remaining deliveries of the over. I can't believe it though those shots weren't perfect. It was a war-like situation."

"I didn't want him to complete a century; he wanted to be there anyway. Now he was on 94; I was bowling with all my might but didn't think it would be easy to stop him. So I tried again bowled him a bouncer. Earlier, he was not playing normally since the ball hit the helmet. So I bowled to him again, and my assessment was correct. He played the hook shot, and the ball hit the top of his bat and hit the long. Davis took his catch on the leg. If this ball had hit the middle of the bat, it would have been a six, and his century would have been completed.”

LIFE TESTS YOU

Marshall has also written that this wicket was one of the most valuable wickets for him. It is known from this example that Marshall was a cricketer from the heart, playing cricket honestly. He was such an ambassador of fast bowling who was famous in every corner of the world where cricket was popular.

In an interview with Fox TV channel after being diagnosed with colon cancer, Marshall said, "This is life. Life tests you, and you can't change it. I have no control over it."

But as long as Marshall played in the world of cricket, he kept changing that world.