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Why Joel 'Big Bird' Garner was underrated

2nd April, 2020
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Roar Guru
2nd April, 2020
22
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In the spring of 1982, BTV introduced a new show called Cricket on TV. It was mostly highlights of the ODI matches played in Australia in the early 1980s.

Thus, I saw the famous underarm match. I also saw Wasim Raja with his leg spin completely bamboozling the mighty West Indies batting line-up to win a match for his side.

A coloured clothing, white ball, floodlit cricket – this was my introduction to the modern game of the time.

The best-of-five final for the 1981-82 season was shown as well. The West Indies won it 3-1. The third final took place at the SCG on Australia Day. The hosts, already 2-0 down, made a bad start, losing opener Bruce Laird early to go down 1-19.

In came the Australian captain looking – at least to me – rather weird with his beard. A man woefully short of form, he lasted just five deliveries before big Joel Garner broke the timbers. The duck accompanied him back to the pavilion.

Though I was supporting Australia, I wasn’t too perturbed by his dismissal. I was more upset when my hero, Kim Hughes, was yorked by Micheal Holding for 28. But, back to Ian Chappell’s dismissal, it became important to me because this was my introduction to ‘Big Bird’ Joel Garner.

Joel Garner runs with a wicket stump in each hand.

(Mark Leech/Getty Images)

Not that I haven’t heard about him before. Anyone following the international cricket in the late 1970s would know about the four fearsome fast bowlers of the Windies at time. After spending a couple of years in World Series Cricket they returned to lift the World Cup and then beat Australia in the unofficial World Test Championship finals.

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The thing with Garner was that in my mind he was always in the supporting cast, hardly ever coming into the limelight. Despite having one of the best bowling records in both form of the game, he barely made the headlines.

Making his Test debut against Pakistan in early 1977 at his home ground of Georgetown, he took 4-130 and 2-60 – very respectable for a debutant given the strength of the opposition batting. Overall he had a very respectable 25 wickets from five Tests in his debut series.

Yet Colin Croft, who debuted along with Garner, stole the show, taking 8-29 on the flat track of Queen’s Park Oval in the first innings of the second Test. And Croft continued to make the headlines for his relentless hostile bowling in the series. Then, at Lord’s in the 1979 World Cup final he took 5-38 as the hosts lost eight wickets for 11 runs. But the people kept talking about Viv Richards and Collis King.

Garner’s impressive record looks even more noteworthy if we consider that the presence of Andy Roberts and Micheal Holding meant he started to get the new ball regularly only from 1984, when he was already 31. And even then he was overshadowed by new-ball partner Malcolm Marshall. Marshall and Gordon Greenidge became big heroes of the 1984 ‘whitewash’, but it was Garner who had started the domination with his nine wickets in the first test.

And when he retired at the end of the 1986-87 season it went virtually unnoticed. Anyway, another six foot eight inch fast bowler named Curtly Ambrose came to fill up his big shoes within a year.

So, he was one of those players who just went along his own duty with little attention given by the others. Still, I would try to focus on some of the major highlights of his career.

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Success Down Under
For most WI players and fans the success by Clive Lloyd’s team in the three-Test series in Australia in 1979-80 was a special one because the Aussies had traditionally dominated this rivalry. As usual, Garner remained a reliable performer, with 14 wickets in the series. In fact in a way it was the Big Bird who started it all on the opening day of the second Test at the MCG.

After the drawn first Test at the Gabba, Greg Chappell won the toss at the MCG and decided to bat. Australia made a solid start and reached 1-69, but then Garner, who had come on to bowl as the second change, ran through the Aussie top order to give his side the edge. After trapping opener Julien Wiener, he dismissed Allan Border and Chappell in quick succession to leave the home side 4-108. Holding and Croft then cleaned up the tail, and the Windies eventually won by ten wickets.

The West Indies ensured their series victory with a massive win at the Adelaide Oval. For Garner, the third Test would be memorable for another reason.

The story goes that back in 1973 Ian Chappell was leading his side in Bridgetown. A rather tall young man came to him and asked for an autograph. Ian obliged and then casually asked the young man whether he played cricket or not. “I will one day play against you,” came the reply. Of course that young man was Joel Garner.

Garner and Ian Chappell met each other in World Series Cricket. It was during that hard-fought home series against Pakistan that the almost entire Windies team, including Big Bird and five Pakistan starts, were signed by the Kerry Packer’s agents.

But it was still a special thing for Joel to face Ian in an official Test match. Interestingly, I am not sure that Garner had the chance to bowl to Ian. The Australian ex-captain had a poor match, with scores of two from four balls and four from eight balls, dismissed by Roberts and Holding respectively. On both occasions he fell to the new ball, so chances of him facing Garner must be pretty slim.

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The year 1984
The year of 1984 was a memorable one for the Windies, as they recorded 11 consecutive Test victories. While Marshall and Holding missed odd victories here and there due to injury problems, Garner was omnipresent, taking the new ball and charging in with his nice rhythmic run-up to the stumps.

The West Indies-Australia series started in early March with the Test at Georgetown, traditionally not the fastest pitch in the Caribbean. To compound things for Garner, both Holding and Marshall were missing the match. Still, Garner remained a constant menace for the Aussie batsmen, taking 6-75 and 3-67 in the drawn Test.

No less impressive was his 6-60 in the next Test at the flat track of Queen’s Park Oval. Only the brilliance of Allan Border saved the Test for the Aussies, but eventually they were outplayed in the remaining three Tests.

The ‘whitewash’ in the summer in England started at Edgbaston on 14 June, and on the opening day it was Garner who dominated the show. England’s captain won the toss, decided to bat and immediately regretted his decision as Garner removed opener Graeme Fowler and No. 3 Derek Randall for ducks as the hosts slumped to 2-5. Garner took 4-53 as the hosts were restricted to 191 despite a typically fighting 64 from Ian Botham.

The first-day wicket offered plenty of movement for the bowlers, but while Marshall and the others bowled a bit too short for the conditions, Big Bird bowled the perfect length. He later added 5-55 in the second innings as the hosts suffered a humiliating defeat.

Then, as the winter approached in the northern hemisphere, Lloyd, in his final tour, led the Windies in a really long tour to Australia. The itinerary included a five-Test series plus two ODI events. Despite the 3-0 defeat earlier in the year, many Aussies were expecting a better fight from their team in the home soil.

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It took no time for this hope to become a mere illusion. Put in to bat at the WACA, the Windies scored 416. Both the Australian captain and his four pace bowlers came for some harsh criticism, but the truth was that they were badly let down by the fielders. And then, as the home side started batting late on the second day, Garner quickly removed Kepler Wessels and Graeme Wood with the new ball. Micheal Holding took over the next morning, restricting Australia to 76 all out.

Garner’s most significant contribution in the series came on the opening day of the second Test at the Gabba. This time Lloyd won the toss and put the opposition in. And his bowlers wasted no time. First, Wessels was out for a duck, bowled by Garner by a delivery that kept unusually low. Skipper Hughes came out to bat at 3-33 and started a bold counterattack. There may have been a touch of desperation about his batting, but the crowd cheered him loudly as he hit five boundaries.

But the Windies pace battery had their plan ready for the Aussie captain. A well-directed short pitch ball, an attempted hook and a catch at the deep for Marshall was how things went. Hughes scored 34 from 37 deliveries, his last double-digit score in Test cricket. Garner finished with 4-67 as the Australians managed only 175.

Thus Garner was a vital member of the golden era of West Indies cricket – when they played aggressive cricket, entertained the crowd and normally thrashed their oppositions. He was a kind of a silent worker. He never had any great series or a great season in my memory, but he was always there. For example, during the second whitewash of England in 1986 he took 27 wickets in the five Tests, but there was no fifer for him.

The retirement
Joel Garner retired from international cricket at the end of 1986-87 season. He was almost 35. There were plenty of fast bowling talents available in the Windies at the time. Garner’s figures of 4-79 and 1-3 in his final Test would suggest that he was still a force to be reckoned with. New Zealand won the match by five wickets.

An interesting fact about the players of the great Windies team of the 1980s is that a lot of these players tasted defeat in their final Test match. Perhaps Clive Lloyd started the trend with SCG 1985, and the list includes Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Larry Gomes (in the same Test as Garner), Viv Richards, Jeff Dujon, Malcolm Marshall and of course Garner.

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The Oval in 1991 was the last Test for Richards, Dujon and Marshall. Haynes ended his career as the impregnable fort of Bridgetown fell for the Windies in 1994.

Micheal Holding, who missed most of the New Zealand tour with an injury, also left international cricket at the end of the season. So, the Windies lost three key players – Gomes, Holding and Garner – at the end of the season. Quite remarkably it seems they missed Gomes most. Carl Hooper emerged as his replacement – he was flamboyant, exciting and a great entertainer on his day, but he lacked the composure of Larry required for Test match batting.

As for the fast bowling department, Courtney Walsh just moved on to the next gear for the difficult tour to India later that year, with Pakistan touring the West Indies early in 1988, facing both Curtley Ambrose and Ian Bishop.

Garner the batsman
Like most top bowlers of his time, Garner paid little attention to his batting. An average of 12.44 testifies as much. His highest Test score of 60 came at the Gabba in 1979. It was an entertaining innings featuring three fours and four sixes. It’s his only Test 50, but probably his most memorable batting effort was his 43 against Pakistan in his very first Test innings. He defied the Pakistan bowlers for a long time, in the process sharing a vital seventh-wicket stand of 70 with skipper Clive Lloyd.

Garner’s contribution with the bat becomes more valuable if we consider that this exciting Test eventually ended in a draw, with the West Indies last-wicket pair surviving with the target still 55 runs away.

Back to the first innings, Garner was dismissed ironically by Javed Miandad. Javed bowled him with his leg spin.

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Garner’s place among the elites
While Garner’s bowling average in both Tests (20.97) and ODIs (18.84) are most impressive, here I would be mostly concentrating on his Test record. Most of the great bowlers of his time averaged between 22 to 24, with Marshall (20.94) the exception. Curtly Ambrose, of the next generation, averages 20.99, but both Marshall and Ambrose got the new ball lot more often than Garner did.

Garner never had a ten-wicket haul in Tests and had only seven fifers in his career. This is hardly surprising given the great Windies fast bowlers generally liked to share the wickets among themselves.

Of course the critics always like to consider fast bowlers’ Test records on the Subcontinent while judging their greatness. Garner’s position in this regard is okay but not brilliant. He never played in India and just played three Tests against Pakistan. He missed the 1978-79 tour to India due to World Series Cricket commitments and was rested for the 1983-84 tour to India and the 1986 series in Pakistan.

Some of his teammates certainly have better records in this regard. In 1974 Andy Roberts created a new record by taking 32 wickets from five Tests in India. Malcolm Marshall broke that record, taking 33 wickets from six Tests in 1983-84. Micheal Holding took 30 wickets in the same series. Courtney Walsh took 26 from just four in 1987-88. Marshall also took 16 from three in Pakistan in 1986.

In contrast Garner took ten wickets from three Tests in 1980 with 4-38 at Multan. Ironically, his average of 19.20 is actually better than his overall Test average. So while he can’t boast of any great success on the Subcontinent, no-one can say that he struggled there either.

So no-one can question Garner’s place among the list of all-time great fast bowlers. He may not have got the media or public attention like Holding or Lillee, but for all the batsmen facing him. he was always a big challenge.

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