CA Walsh: Remember the Name

The year was 1962, 30 since India had gained international status and it had won only 8 out of the 79 test matches that it had played till then. Bad.
On a tour of West Indies and up against a pair of fearsome fast bowlers in Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith. Worse!

The tragic death of Philip Hughes from a blow to the head gathered international headlines and sympathy, a little known incident on the aforementioned tour could have also ended on a similarly unfortunate note. India’s skipper Nari Contractor was facing up against the fierce Charlie Griffith in a first class match against Barbados and a rising ball hit him on the back of his skull. Frank Worrell, the West Indies captain, was the first to donate blood for the blood transfusion which ultimately saved Contractor’s life. He didn’t play test cricket again, but for sure was fortunate enough to tell his tale (Contractor is 82, and assuredly heading towards a century).

West Indian fast bowlers have had a history of causing as much harm to the batsman as to the stumps. The killer jolts they’ve dealt to batsmen has, more than anything else, become their enduring legacy.

But, something else happened in 1962. The year marks the birth of Courtney Andrew Walsh, who was to remain in the shadow of bulkier contemporaries for the majority of his career much because he didn’t quite fit into the West Indian fast bowler stereotype. Nothing is more representative of Walsh’s persona than this image. Skirting through the crowd on the final day of the Oval Test (2000), Walsh is seen towering over everybody else, and yet somehow appears to be a benign presence.

He remains perhaps the most underrated West Indies fast bowler ever (disagreements are welcome), despite having breached the following milestones in a glittering 17 year career:

Courtney Walsh’s career can be divided in two parts, from 9 Nov 1984-23 Apr 1993, when he operated exclusively as a second/third change fast bowler for the West Indies, and from 1 May 1993-19 Apr 2001, when he formed along with Curtly Ambrose, one of the most successful new ball partnerships of all time. Walsh’s transition from a change to a strike bowler is absolutely remarkable, considering that he was already 32 years old when handed the new ball. At an age when most fast bowlers are past their prime, Walsh turned his could-have-been-not-so good fate on its head to become one of the leading bowlers in the world till his retirement.

Walsh’s stats reveal a remarkable transition, not only did he take more wickets per match (4.3 as against 3.46), but conceded lower number of runs per wicket, lesser runs per over, and took more than 3 times the number of 5-fors as he did before.

 

Span Mtch Wkts Ave Eco S/R 5W
9 Nov 1984 – 23 Mar 1993 58 201 25.17 2.63 57.5 5
1 May 1993 – 19 Apr 2001 74 318 23.98 2.47 58.1 17

Table 1: Walsh career break-up

A more nuanced analysis of his record vs all test playing nations better illustrates the brilliance of Walsh. By using the same break-up as above, Walsh’s numbers across major bowling parameters: Wickets per match, Average and Strike Rate, improved against all test playing nations apart from India (surprising isn’t it?). This given that he had a great tour to India in 1987/88 where he was the highest wicket taker from either sides. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe have been excluded from this analysis as Walsh didn’t play that much against them, and hence his numbers look either excessively shrunk, or exaggerated.

 

  Wickets per match Average Strike Rate
Opp. Nov’84- Apr’93 May’93- Apr’01 Diff. Nov’84-Apr’93 May’93-Apr’01 Diff. Nov’84-Apr’93 May’93-Apr’01 Diff.
Aus 2.95 4.22 1.27 30.93 26.93 -4.00 68.9 59.1 -9.80
Eng 3.35 4.59 1.24 27.93 24.07 -3.86 63.7 59.3 -4.40
India 5.50 3.00 -2.50 16.02 29.09 13.07 35.5 74.3 38.80
N.Z 4.00 4.50 0.50 23.81 20.81 -3.00 54.5 51.1 -3.40
Pak 2.92 4.14 1.23 24.40 22.62 -1.78 57.8 50.3 -7.50
S.A. 4.00 5.22 1.22 25.50 19.31 -6.19 73.5 53.9 -19.60

Table 2: Comparative analysis (Pre Transition vs Post Transition)

During his peak as a bowler (1 May 1993-19 Apr 2001), only Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath took more wickets than Walsh, and amongst bowlers who took more than 200 wickets during the period in consideration, only Curtly Ambrose, Shaun Pollock, Muttiah Muralidaran and Shane Warne had a better economy rate than Walsh. Walsh also took more 5-fors than all bowlers, apart from Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald and Muttiah Muralidaran.

Player Name Mtch Wkts Ave Eco S/R 5W
Shane Warne 76 345 26.24 2.45 64.2 15
Glenn McGrath 70 326 21.71 2.53 51.4 18
Courtney Walsh 74 318 23.98 2.47 58.1 17
Muttiah Muralidaran 58 301 25.14 2.36 63.7 24
Allan Donald 64 299 21.72 2.84 45.8 18
Shaun Pollock 56 231 20.32 2.26 53.8 12
Wasim Akram 53 225 22.43 2.61 51.4 13
Anil Kumble 51 223 28.79 2.5 68.9 13
Curtly Ambrose 57 216 20.69 2.25 55 13
Waqar Younis 49 207 24.65 3.22 45.9 9

Table 3: Top Bowlers (May’93-Apr-01)

Much has been said about the Walsh-Ambrose new ball pair, but a closer look at the matches they played together bring out Walsh as a superior wicket-taker than Ambrose. In the 50 matches they opened the bowling in (8 Apr 1994-31 Aug 2000), they took a combined 418 wickets. Walsh was easily the more prolific of the two, claiming almost 50 wickets more than Ambrose. Also, more number of 5-fors and 10-fors add further cement to Walsh’s superiority as a penetrative new ball bowler.

Player Name Mtch Runs Wkts Avg Econ 5W 10W
Courtney Walsh 50 5174 233 22.2 2.52 11 2
Curtly Ambrose 50 3952 185 21.3 2.27 14 0

              Table 4: Walsh vs Ambrose (May’93-Aug’00)

The one thing that makes Walsh stand out from the rest is his stamina and consistency. As has already been mentioned, Walsh was given the new ball only when he was 32 years old and continued bowling from that position till he retired at 39. Walsh, to this day, is only behind two Australians (Clarrie Grimmett and Shane Warne) in terms of number wickets taken after attaining the age of 35. His average is also only behind Sydney Barnes and Richard Hadlee. If the benchmark is filtered to include only fast bowlers, Walsh is ahead of the second placed Richard Hadlee by daylight. It is a shame that his services to the West Indies team were of so little avail during these years as they won only 10 of the 40 matches they played.

Player Name Mtch Runs Wkts Ave Eco 5W
Clarrie Grimmett 33 4735 192 24.66 2.16 18
Shane Warne 33 4570 181 25.24 2.97 10
Courtney Walsh 39 3890 180 21.61 2.29 9
Anil Kumble 35 5155 154 33.47 3.03 6
Sydney Barnes 18 2058 139 14.8 2.36 18
Muttiah Muralidaran 23 3531 126 28.02 2.88 10
Richard Hadlee 23 2482 116 21.39 2.63 11
Lance Gibbs 29 3232 100 32.32 1.96 5
Rangana Herath 21 2986 97 30.78 2.8 7
Arthur Mailey 19 3158 93 33.95 3.24 6

Table 5: Top wicket-takers after the age of 35

Not only was Walsh pushing his body and stamina to the limit, he was also bearing the brunt of wicket taking disproportionate to it. From 30 Oct 1997 to 19 Apr 2001, Walsh took almost 32% of all wickets taken by West Indian bowlers. Only Muttiah Muralidaran (35%) took a higher percentage of wickets than Walsh in this period. Among fast bowlers, Walsh is leading by a big margin as Shaun Pollock (25.9%) is a distant second. But there was a certain Allan Donald who operated in tandem with him didn’t he?

Country Highest Wicket Taker Wkts Team Wkts %
West Indies Courtney Walsh 180 591 30.46%
Pakistan Saqlain Mushtaq 98 526 18.63%
Australia Glenn Mcgrath 171 707 24.19%
New Zealand Chris Cairns 102 463 22.03%
India Anil Kumble 108 414 26.09%
Sri Lanka Muttiah Muralidaran 185 516 35.85%
England Darren Gough 112 541 20.70%
South Africa Shaun Pollock 191 737 25.92%
Zimbabwe Health Streak 71 300 23.67%

                             Table 6: Most Effective wicket takers (Oct’97-Apr’01)

Dennis Waight, the physio of the West Indies team during Kerry Packer’s World Series cricket, once said that if Walsh stops bowling, he’ll never bowl again. Walsh often gave an impression that he could bowl for as long as his captain and the situation demanded. It is only fitting that he bowled the maximum number of balls for any fast bowler, he is followed by Glenn Mcgrath and the indefatigable Kapil Dev. In fact, Walsh bowled an absolutely mind boggling 1, 07,324 balls in top class cricket, easily the most by any fast bowler in history.

Player Name Balls Bowled
Courtney Walsh 30019
Glenn Mcgrath 29248
Kapil Dev 27740
James Anderson 25185
Shaun Pollock 24353
Chaminda Vaas 23438
Wasim Akram 22627
Curtly Ambrose 22103
Richard Hadlee 21918
Ian Botham 21815

Table 7: Most balls bowled by pace bowlers (Test Matches)

Placid and unresponsive Asian wickets are often considered tough to bowl on for Fast Bowlers. A below par performance in the few tests Dennis Lillee played in the subcontinent is perhaps the only question mark on his otherwise brilliant career numbers. But not so for Walsh. Not only is he the most successful overseas fast bowler on Asian wickets, his average is also bettered only by a fellow West Indian in Wes Hall. Not surprisingly, there are three West Indian quickies on this list.

Player Name Mtch Wkts Ave
Courtney Walsh 17 77 20.53
Dale Steyn 16 76 20.8
Malcolm Marshall 19 71 23.05
Richard Hadlee 13 68 21.58
Shaun Pollock 17 60 23.18
Glenn Mcgrath 16 58 25.96
Wes Hall 11 54 20.05
Jason Gillespie 13 51 22.86
Matthew Hoggard 14 50 28.22

Table 8: Best pace bowlers in Asia

To top it all, in a first class career that spanned from 1981 to 2001, Walsh ended up being the highest non-English wicket taker of all time. He is followed by Malcolm Marshall, Intikhab Alam (the highest placed Asian on all time the list) and Bishen Bedi (Highest placed Indian on the all-time list!). That the top 10 list is dominated by presence of 6 spinners, illustrates the fitness and willpower Walsh possessed to excel at every level of the game.

Player Name Wkts
Courtney Walsh 1807
Malcolm Marshall 1651
Intikhab Alam 1571
Bishen Bedi 1560
Richard Hadlee 1490
Clarrie Grimmett 1424
Mike Procter 1417
Mushtaq Ahmed 1404
S. Venkataraghavan 1390
Muttiah Muralidaran 1374

Table 9: Most first-class wickets

The omission of Courtney Walsh in debates on deciding the greatest fast bowler is mainly due to his being the spearhead of a weak test side during his peak years. He didn’t run through batting line-ups single handedly like a Curtly Ambrose, but through sheer consistency and stamina, he did run through the record books.

(Note: This article was first published by this author on Sportskeeda.)

 

 

 

Leave a comment