The terminal decline of West Indies's fast bowling battery - Part 1

The case of chunky Barbadian, Patterson Thompson, is an interesting one. His ambition was to become a fine pilot, but he suddenly discovered that he could bowl genuinely quick too. Very soon, he was playing in the Red Stripe cup in 94/95, and was drafted into the Windies set-up in 95/96 to play a test series against the Kiwis. Incidentally, he replaced, Cuffy, who had a disappointing World cup in the subcontinent in 95/96.

Just a few days before the test series against Kiwis, Thompson, with his barrel-chested-action captured the imagination of cricket loving public in the Caribbean by bowling a nasty bouncer to smash the Kiwi batsman, Astle, on his chin in a warm-up game. The deadly bouncer is said to have frightened Kiwis to death, as blood was splattered everywhere on the track. The downside to Thompson’s bowling though, was that he just couldn’t bowl with any control. Thompson was so wayward in his debut test that swashbuckling Kiwi batsman, Astle, took sweet revenge for being hit on the chin by carting him all over the park. In fact, Thompson bowled a whopping 22 no balls in that test, and ended-up with embarrassing match returns of 22 – 1 – 135 -4

The Wisden described him as, “When he made his Test debut for the West Indies against New Zealand in Barbados in 1995-96, Patterson Thompson had a shocker. Making Devon Malcolm look like a metronome, he bowled 22 no-balls and returned match figures of 22-1-135- 4 – which flattered him. He played just one more Test, in Australia the following winter, and that was that. His Test strike rate, 45.6, would do anyone proud but his economy rate, 5.65, would make even a joke bowler blush.”

Thompson tried to eradicate the no-ball problem by shortening his run-up in Australia in 96/97, but to no avail. He finally gave-up on cricket by 98/99, and nowadays, is a said to be a final commercial-pilot.

Franklyn Rose

The Jamaican, Rose, caught the eye of Caribbean’s cricket cognoscenti when he ripped-open a strong Trinidad & Tobago’s batting line-up with a 5-for in Red Stripe cup in 92/93. Everyone in the Caribbean Islands rated him highly, but disciplinary issues meant that he made his Test debut only in 96/97 against India.

On an unusually placid surface at Jamaica against India in 96/97, the king of mass destruction, Ambrose, for once looked a touch lacklustre. But that day, Franklyn Rose, rose to the occasion with a 6 wicket haul. He wasn’t an out-an-out fast bowler yet. He had that uncanny ability to surprise the batsman with an extra burst of pace. He could also extract seam movement out of most surfaces. In a Test series against South Africa in 98/99, he showed that his 5-for against India wasn’t a flash in the pan by taking 7 for 84. Just when it looked like West Indies had found an attack leader, Rose, was dogged by disciplinary issues yet again. In his final Test series in England in 2000, he looked a pale shadow of his former self.

In ’97, Nixon McLean, emerged from the stables of West Indies’s fast bowling tribe with great hope. When England toured the Caribbean in 97/98, all the talk in cricketing circles centred around whether McLean was the right man to take the torch of fast bowling from old warhorses like Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop. He couldn’t bowl in his debut Test at Jamaica, as the game was infamously abandoned after a few overs were bowled due to the track being too treacherous for batting. In subsequent Test matches he played in that series, he didn’t take too many wickets, but impressed one-and-all with his raw pace.

The downward trend in his cricketing graph started in South Africa in 98/99 when for some unknown reason, he decided to bang it half way down the pitch for most of the Test series. The South African batsmen, well-known for being very good square of the wicket on either side, made a mincemeat of his bowling. At the dawn of the new century in 2000, McLean did make a comeback by bowling a few incisive spells in England as well as in Australia. But he soon disappeared into oblivion.

In the second part of the article, I will look at a few more pacers who fell by the wayside. Also, a sneak peek at the current crop of Windies quicks.

For part 2, click here.