We didn't need to see the ESPN Legends of Cricket programme the other night to remind ourselves just how great a bowler Malcolm Denzil Marshall was and what a tragedy it was that he died so young at only 41.
As someone who grew up in the 1980's, the sight of Marshall tearing in and tormenting English batsmen resonates to this day. Along with Wasim Akram, Marshall is the best fast bowler we have seen in 30 years of watching cricket. He was certainly the best of the great West Indian pacemen of the 1970s and 80s and that itself shows just how good he was.
Marshall had everything. Express pace, a nasty bouncer (just ask Mike Gatting and Andy Lloyd) and the ability to swing the ball both ways. Allied to this, he was unassuming and left a positive mark wherever he went. He was a great servant to Hampshire and he also played for Natal only a few years after the end of Apartheid, which showed that money was not his primary objective.
His record was phenomenal. Marshall took 376 wickets in 81 tests at a miserly average of 20.94 and an incredible strike rate of 46.7. He was brave also as our most vivid and fondest memory of Marshall shows, when after breaking a thumb in the field he batted one handed at Headingley in 1984 to see Larry Gomes to a hundred. Then he came out with one arm in plaster and proceeded to destroy England with seven for 53.
Truly, a legend of cricket and one that is sorely missed, and; definitely a Reverse Sweep hero.
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It's not jealously KP, it's pure and simple indifference
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