Tim de Lisle
Most fast bowlers are sports cars, Ferraris or Aston Martins, exciting but expensive. Courtney Walsh is a Volvo. A number of fast bowlers have been more brilliant, and a few of them are playing today – Allan Donald, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath, Curtly Ambrose. But no fast bowler, past or present, comes close to Walsh for durability.
He started slowly, and finished slowly, but he got there in the end, with the help of a man called Henry Olonga. He began, 16 years ago, as the West Indies’ uphill, into-the-wind, only-two-slips bowler (somebody had to do it) and was halfway through his career before he was even given the new ball. His autobiography, which appeared last year, should have been ghosted by Aesop. Walsh may be the tallest, thinnest tortoise in history.
Only three men have ever reached 400 wickets in Tests. The first, Richard Hadlee of New Zealand, was a great fast-medium bowler and a useful lower-order hitter. The second, Kapil Dev of India, was a great all-rounder and a very good medium-fast bowler. The third, Walsh, is a comically incompetent batsman, as he reminded us this week, by lasting three balls when all he had to do was stay in for a few minutes and see his captain to a hundred. How he goes in ahead of Reon King is one of life’s mysteries. But great bowlers don’t have to be able to bat.
Walsh, unlike Hadlee and Dev, has been classified for nearly all his career as RF: right-arm fast. Just because he bowls within himself five balls an over, doesn’t mean he isn’t quick. It is fair to assume that no one in history has been so fast for so long. At 37-and-a-half, on a torpid pitch, he can still make Test batsmen jump. The only Englishman to take even 350 wickets is Ian Botham, with 373. When he reached the age Courtney is now, he was history: a portly shadow of his former self, sending down a few wily slow-medium pacers.
The man with the wide rolling eyes has seen it all. He began in 1983/84, when the West Indies still had a decade to go as kings of the world. He played under Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Richie Richardson. He succeeded Richardson himself, the first fast bowler ever to captain the West Indies. He lost the captaincy to Brian Lara, but only one of them surrendered any dignity in the process, and it wasn’t Walsh.
He is a fast bowler, not a saint. At Sabina Park in 1993/94, he subjected another fast man with a Jamaican heritage, Devon Malcolm, to a vicious barrage. When he did the same to Mike Atherton, that was fair enough, and Atherton relished the duel, whereas Malcolm could hardly see the bowler, let alone the ball. But that was out of character, and one beat-up in 16 years is a pretty good record. As Atherton confirmed in a generous tribute last week, Walsh is as popular with other players as a leading fast bowler can be.
His record is unlikely to stand for long. Shane Warne, seven years his junior, is into the 350s, and Wasim (33) is on 383. Walsh should become the first man to make it to 450, some time this summer in England, but 500 is surely beyond him.
In this series, at last, the West Indies have become a team with four fast bowlers again, not two. Walsh will hand over as gracefully as Dev has, with champagne and good wishes.
He has given us many indelible memories and two more came on Monday. One was the sight of Courtney’s mum, proudly manning, or womanning, her home-made scoreboard, changing 434 to 435 and number two in the world to number one. The other was Courtney himself, celebrating his first two wickets: the oldest seamer in town, running around in circles, like a small boy being an aeroplane. After 4E197 overs, that says a lot.
Tim de Lisle is editor of wisden.com and Wisden Cricket Monthly
ENDS