The fearful pace quartet disappeared

By Rajadhyax

The West Indies were formidable world beaters once upon a time and 15-16 year olds who follow cricket today find it very hard to believe. In the late 1960s, 1970s and some part of 1980s it was considered a major achievement if you could draw a Test match against them. If you won a Test against them, it was cause enough for a major celebration. A series win against the ‘Windies’ meant nothing short of a miracle.

This was partly achieved through the contributions of legendary batsmen like Rohan Kanhai, Alvin Kalicharan, Everton Weekes, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes and they were ably supported by spinners like Lance Gibbs or the enviable all-rounder Sir. Garfield Sobers. Scratch players like Larry Gomes or Gus Logie played their bit parts as well. But above everything else the Caribbean team excelled because of a fearsome pace quartet that they possessed that could instil fear of injury and wicket at the same time in otherwise proficient batsmen. These speedsters were a bane to the world of batsmen!

The tradition of a pace battery began way before the 1960s in West Indies, but men like Roy Gilchrist and Wes Hall brought it into limelight. They were some of the earliest West Indians who could intimidate a batsman into a false stroke or compel him to give away his wicket by their sheer pace and bounce. Since their time the Windies never had to search too much for their next rookie paceman who would rise on to become a Test match marauder later. But without doubt the quartet that made the maximum headlines – and also won the maximum matches for the team – was the one comprising of Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Andy Roberts. Before Marshall that position used to go generally to men like John Holder.

During his captaincy Clive Lloyd hardly had to use his brains to prise out wickets. If he thought the batsmen were getting a little used to the bowling of two, he would throw the ball at the remaining two and wickets would tumble anyway. And this could happen in any country since they were not fair-weather cricketers. They were men who never complained about the nature of pitches laid by the groundsman as they could make many batsmen run for their life on most pitches in most conditions.

Stumps broke on regular basis and balls flying to three or four slips were a common sight. Even the lists of injuries were relentless, Mike Gatting of England being the last of the bloody ones. Men like Nari Contractor and Anshuman Gaikwad can tell you a thing or two about being injured against these tormentors. So all in all, it was lively pace, bounce and swing that had you back in the pavilion before you could say ‘fast bowler’.

Gradually these muscle men slowed down with age and retired in response to creaking bones and weary muscles. The late Malcolm Marshall kept the fire burning even after his three illustrious partners of destruction had left international cricket. The next line of youngsters – like Benjamin or Ian Bishop – were never that consistently quick or lethal to pick up from where the ‘famous four’ had left. Patrick Paterson can be called as the last of such guys who could make batsmen run out of their leg-stump guard effectively offering the wicket on a silver platter. Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose picked up a lot of wickets after Paterson but they never duplicated the level of intimidation of the famous pace quartet, as Walsh would one day confess himself to press.

This was also the period from when the Caribbean team weakened. The batting too got frail. A one-off Ritchie Richardson or the genius of Brian Lara also could not save the slump. Teams started to pick wins against them on a regular basis with Steve Waugh’s Aussies even beating them in their own back yard. Today West Indies cricket is in the doldrums and I can feel my sadness when I express this bitter truth. The calypso flair is no longer there! The conflict over renewal of contracts has not yet fully died and the talent too is not up to the mark.

But the bad news for cricket lovers (probably a good one for batsmen of the world) being that West Indies no longer have even a single pace bowler with capabilities that come anywhere near Marshall-Holding-Roberts-Garner quartet. In fact, overall in world cricket you don’t find that kind of searing pace with that consistency anywhere now. We rejoice upon seeing one-odd delivery from Lee and Akhtar reaching 95 miles an hour when that quartet were known to bowl 8 to 10 overs on the trot at speeds exceeding 94 and 95 miles an hour. Except an extraordinarily talented man like Sunil Gavaskar or Geoff Boycott, Greg Chappell or Zaheer Abbas, no one could handle them with any degree of confidence – dominating over them was only a distant dream.

As I write this article today I grieve that kids in cricket today do not have the opportunity to see the ‘fearsome foursome’ in action, live, bowling to batsmen with fear-shot eyes.