The Famed Quartet

The Famed Quartet

 A famous quartet of fast bowlers dominated the world cricket for over a decade in the seventies and eighties of the last century. Known as the quartet they consisted og Holding, Roberts , Marshal and Garner.Of these Michael Holding  along with his partner Malcolm Marshall was a real terror. When this duo bowled the opposing teams be it Australia or India or England rarely won and generally lost against them. Holding created a terror like crisis in the Indian dressing room in the 1976 Indian tour of the west Indies and Bedi twice declared the innings closed to save his tail enders from facing Holding on a lethal Sabina Park wicket. In a hundred and 35 years of test cricket this has never happened.
Malcolm Marshal was another fast bowler who was faster and more accurate than holding. He has the distinction of dismissing the Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar first ball on a number of occasions.

Most batsmen in the world had difficulty in facing Marshal. He had a shorter run up but his speed was immense and Indian batsmen in particular were happier in the pavilion than facing him. The Aussies in particular never won when Marshal played.
Roberts and Garner were the other pace bowlers of this era. Roberts was a gentleman and played by the book. He was quite fast , but more accurate than marshal and holding. Above all he never employed intimidatory tactics. Garner played fewer tests but his reach made the ball rear in an ugly manner and batsmen had a difficult time fending him off.

All these 4 when they played were invincible. The fact is that for whatever score the West Indies were dismissed , these 4 would insure that the opposing teams scored less runs. They also had an astute captain in Clive Lloyd who handled them to perfection

Conclusion
The West Indies is the one country that has consistently produced the fastest bowlers in world cricket. No body can explain why the pace men with express speed originate in greater numbers from these islands. May be it is the diet or in their genes. Who knows? The fact is that their population is half of Bombay and yet they are the leaders in super fast bowlers. Coming down to this quartet of pace bowlers, the world never saw anything like him

Madan G Singh

An early retired Gp Capt from Air Force who is an Executive Director in the Corporate world. Loves to write fiction and articles. Published over 60 short stories and his novel" Romance of the Frontier" is published from Notion Books.His second novel is on way for publication. The author also has close to 10,000 articles on the b net with millions of views

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