Malcolm Marshall

I remember watching the Great West Indies team in 1984 at Headingley with my dad.

And Malcolm Marshall playing one-handed due to a broken thumb.

Priceless.

Good on you.

This is the 1984 team that came to Australia and dominated in test cricket.

In rough batting order, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Richie Richardson, Larry Gomes, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Jeffrey Dujon, Joel Garda, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh.

12th man, Roger Harper.

It was always the 12th man who would come on the field because he was a great fielder.

... who would, who would you rather face?

[laughs] Malcolm Marshall would have picked a left arm [laughs] finger.

Well, who would you rather face on that pitch there?

Yeah, go on, Mo.

Who knows? So you're looking at...

Like the greatest to ever do it, you know, a combination of Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Michael Holding, Colin Croft.

And I was looking at their numbers as I frequent that every Sunday evening before heading to work on Monday morning.

Malcolm Marshall averaged 20, Andy Roberts 25, Joel Garner 20, Michael Holding 23, Colin Croft 23.

And I think that's...

It's at least scarier, you know? And I think given the nature of, like, no one had ever seen that before, I think that probably is the best ever.

I can't think of anyone.

Malcolm Marshall maybe.

So, so you've got sort of that sort of Bumrah and McGrath supercomputer brain.

Clearly Marco Jansen doesn't have that, and clearly Mohammed Siraj doesn't have that, right? And then you've got that sort of, um, that ability to read the conditions and work it out exactly what you're supposed to be doing on that day that maybe Malcolm Marshall and Wasim Akram had, right? And between the four of those bowlers, they all have little bits of each, but those are probably the absolute pinnacles of those kinds of skills.

Well, Mohammed Siraj maybe have some- has some of the weapons of those guys, but does he know exactly when and how to use them? Probably not.

And that's a really consistent thing, right? We see that right across cricket all the time.

You know, if we had a good day somehow, maybe we would, you know, get into position to actually be ahead.

And Malcolm Marshall had batted with his left wrist in a plaster cast, well strapped up with a, you know, broken bone in his hand somewhere.

So we thought, "They're gonna be one bowler short, aren't they?" And Malcolm's rather good, so, you know, no Malcolm Marshall is good news for us.

Uh, when we saw the West Indies team walk out at the start of our second innings, there he was still with strapping on his left hand.

Bad news was his right hand was rather unblemished.