My Four Best Ever West Indies Test Fast Bowlers!

Jul 06, 2025 Sports

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By Colin Croft – Former Guyana, Lancashire CCC & West Indies International Cricketer

Kaieteur Sports – Naming the best of anything is contentious.  Opinions are always subjective.

Television, radio, social media and newspapers commentators, most either uneducated or uninformed about international cricket’s history, waffle unintelligently on the “best” of all aspects of cricket – world’s best ever batters, world’s best ever fast bowlers, WI’s best ever batters, WI’s best ever WI fast bowlers; onwards.

My father, Ivor, and my step-father, Edgar, (Yes.  I was very lucky.  I communicated very well with, and was loved by, both) – always reminded me that “opinions are neither right nor wrong.”    What I think has nothing to do with your thoughts, even in sports, religion or politics.

Abuse, threats, disappearances, even wars occur when one’s opinions do not coincide with others’ opinions.  Just listen to the news!

I was once nearly seriously stabbed, with a long-bladed knife, at Bourda Oval, during its final Test – WI v South Africa; 2005 – for suggesting that while former Guyana and WI captain Carl Hooper looked elegant while batting, he was not a better batter than former Trinidad & Tobago and WI captain, perhaps less elegant, but much more productive, Brain Lara.

Said the wild-eyed, knife-wielder; “Cahlin Craff is a f@#%$&g Guyanee.  I gun kill he muddah s&%$t.  He gaffoe support ahwe bhoy!”.   That confrontation was one of three times in my 72 years alive when I came extremely close to killing a supposed human!

Hooper’s Test batting average; underwhelming at 36.46; 5,762 runs; 102 Tests; bowling, 114 wickets; avg. 49.42.  Lara’s Test batting average; superlative at 52.88; 131 Tests; 11, 953 runs.  Lara is always included in “All WI Test Teams.”  Not so Hooper.  The truth must prevail!

For my “All WI Test XI”, four fast bowlers are included, plus former Guyana and WI off-spinner Lancelot Gibbs; (79 Tests, 309 wickets; avg. 29.09), plus Barbados and WI ‘six-cricketers-in-one’, genius all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers; (93 Tests, 8032 runs; avg 57.78; bowling, 235 wickets; avg. 34.03).  Five more players to be added; one a wicket-keeper.

Criteria for my four best ever WI fast bowlers – dominance, productivity, consistency, impact, effectiveness, longevity, shock value, over 85 mph (137 kph).  No ‘medium dobblers’ allowed!

(1) Sir Wesley Winfield Hall -_Barbados

48 Tests; 192 wickets; avg. 26.38.  Eleven years (1958 – 1969) of leading WI’s attacks everywhere.  ICC-ranked No. 3 WI bowler; No. 27 World Bowler; 898 ICC points.  No-one in fast bowling history frightened more batters world-wide, epitomizing “pace like fire.”

That description was coined by the best ever radio commentator, late Englishman John Arlott, during WI’s Tour to UK 1963.  Sir Wes named his 1965 biography by that phrase too.

Through BBC’s Test Match Special archives, Arlott’s slightly hoarse, throaty, slow baritone comes alive powerfully after more than 60 years:

“Wesley Hall – tall, languid, loose, athletic – accelerates on this long, curving approach of his, jumps and fully elongates himself, then hurls himself and that red ball towards (Ted) Dexter – pace like fire – the ball flashing past Dexter’s bat, collected at shoulder height by young wicket-keeper Deryck Murray, a small man, standing well, perhaps 30 yards, back….” 

Oh, for those heady days of climatic, focused, glorious, exciting radio commentary!

Sir Wes was the first modern-day fast bowler.  No-one carried that responsibility better, to sling a 5.5 ounce (155.9 grams) ball towards batters 22 yds (20.12 m) away.  Fast.  Fast.  Fast!

My introduction to Sir Wes was hearing commentary, as a seven year old; middle of many nights; on our Phillips dry-cell battery radio (as big as a 15-inch television), from WI tour to Australia 1960 / 61, the tour that brought much respect to WI cricket and first Tied Test.

I saw Sir Wes bowl ‘live’ only once, a very scary sight; v Australia, Bourda Oval, April 1965; my first Test attendance experience.  Sir Wes trundled in like an AM General “Hum-Vee”, big golden crucifix dangling, white teeth glaring, with high, straight armed action like windmills.

Sir Gary, then a slippery medium-fast bowler too, opened bowling with Sir Wes in that Test.  Sir Gary quickly clipped Aussie captain R.B. “Bobby” Simpson’s off stump; out for 09; before off-spinner Gibbs completed the carnage.

Australia lost by 212 runs.  Sir Wes two wickets, Sir Gary four wickets, Sir Charlie Griffith two wickets, Joe Solomon one wicket, Gibbs nine wickets; an excellent bowling attack led by Sir Wes.

(2)   Sir Curtly Elconn Lynwall Ambrose – Antigua & Barbuda

98 Tests, 405 wickets; avg. 20.99.  ICC-ranked No. 1 WI Bowler; No. 7 World Bowler.  912 ICC points.  Sir Amby is the best right-handed fast bowler cricket has ever seen since Test cricket’s inception; 15 March 1877, a special day.  Tight yet loose, as guitar strings he plays!

WI’s highest rated bowler ever, no batter bettered him. His aggression, longevity, seriousness, control and consistency collared all batters.  He should have completed 100 Tests.

Sir Amby led a long, strong WI fast bowling line-up for twelve years (1988 – 2000) – Malcolm Marshall, Courtney Walsh, Ian Bishop, Patrick Patterson, Kenny Benjamin, Winston Benjamin, Reon King, Merve Dillon, Cameron Cuffy, Nixon Mc Lean, Franklyn Rose, Eldine Baptiste, Patterson Thompson, Corey Collymore, Ezra Moseley, Pedro Collins et all.

My best recollection of Sir Amby’s talent, speed, focus and production came, v England; Queens Park Oval, T&T, 1994; England set 194 to win in four sessions on Day 4 and Day 5.

Sir Amby exploded.  So fiercely destructive was he in his 2^nd innings spell, that cars, trucks, even perhaps airplanes stopped, so that drivers and aviators could listen to our radio commentary.

Ten devastating overs; Sir Curtly 6–24; England decimated for 46 all out.  WI won by 147 runs.  Walsh 3–16; 9.1 overs.  They scourged Test teams everywhere.  Most damaging was Sir Curtly.

(3) Joel Garner – Barbados

58 Tests, 259 wickets; avg. 20.97.  ICC-ranked No. 6 WI Bowler; No. 37 World Bowler; 890 ICC points.   “Big Bird”, mean as a ravenous rattle snake, is the best Test fast bowler with whom I have ever played.  For ten years (1977 – 1987), he petrified batters with his “Yorkers.”

Six feet nine inches tall (205.74 cm), 240 pounds (108.9 kg), muscled like a racehorse, everything in correspondingly proper proportions, Garner always looked like he could stamp on batters with his size 17 shoes.  He was seriously terrifying as a fast bowler.

No “big” man, not even great basket-baller Shaquille O’Neil, moved such a big frame with such ease and elasticity.  Garner is still the best gully fielder ever seen anywhere in Tests.

Colin Croft – 27 Tests, 125 wickets; avg 23.30.  Perhaps surprisingly for some, I am actually ICC-ranked No. 7 WI Bowler; World Bowler No. 38; 889 ICC points, just one point less than “Big Bird” Garner.  True, despite many denigrating my Test career.  Check with ICC.  Not bad!

My Test debut, v Pakistan, 1977, coincided with Garner’s.  Most of my Tests were played with “Big Bird” trundling earthquakes at the opposite end.  He could bowl well on sawdust.

Playing with Garner was so much fun.  In our first ever Test in Australia; Brisbane, 1979-1980; we put on 56, then a WI 10^th wicket record.  I made 2 no., batting for 90 minutes; Garner made 60!

I got a wicket; Rick Mc Cosker hooking at the 1^st ever ball that I bowled in Tests in Australia, a “bouncer”, caught by Alvin Kallicharran at slip; my match figures 53-9-186-4.  Good start.   Better was “Big Bird”, bowling very frugally in that drawn Test; match figures 63–18-130-6.

(4) Malcolm Denzil Marshall – Barbados

Malcolm “Macco” Marshall was unbelievably good.  81 Tests, 376 wickets; avg. 20.94.  ICC-ranked WI Bowler No. 2; World Bowler No. 11.  910 ICC Points.  Thirteen years (1978 – 1991) of ultra speed, guile, aggression, innovation, destruction, production.

Pakistan’s Safraz Nawaz and Australia’s Merve Hughes were faster bowlers to purvey the art of “reverse swing” regularly, but it was “Macco”, with his incredibly quick arm speed, angled approach and delivery, who perfected that art.

“Macco” called us – Sir Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Colin Croft – “my big brothers”.  He was diminutive by our standards – 5’ 11” tall (180cm) – built more like a tall jockey than the height and bulk of supposed “standard” fast bowlers.  At performing prime, Colin Croft was 6 ‘6” tall (192cm), 215 pounds (198cm / 98kg).

“Macco” had his main break when WI “Kerry Packer” players went to Australia instead of officially touring India with WI in 1978/79.  When “Macco” rejoined us to Australia 1979/80, England 1980, Pakistan 1980/81 and Australia 1981/82, he was well versed in fast bowling.

My best memory of “Macco” was WI Tour to UK 1984.  He batted; No. 11; with a broken hand, damaged while fielding, to allow T&T’s Hiliary “Larry” Gomes to get a century; 103 no., at Leeds.  “Macco’s” seven wickets in the 2^nd innings beat England.  He was truly magnificent.

I have been fortunate to know them all, playing Tests with two. Those four fast bowlers are, for me, the best ever to have played Tests for WI.  Agree or not, I do not care.  Cheers.  Enjoy!

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• Colin Croft, Curtly Ambrose, Fast Bowlers, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Wes Hall, West Indies

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