Standing at just 5‘10“, a mere runt compared to his giant pace bowling comrades, his angled, rhythmical sprint to the crease began somewhere in the mid-off area and culminated in a slightly chest-on action that was all focused power and malevolence. His “skiddy” rather than steep bounce created its own problems, and batsmen had serious difficulty evading his short-pitched deliveries.
Andy Lloyd, for example, had his Test-match batting career curtailed to just 33 minutes during the first Test of the West Indies’ 1984 visit to England. Struck on the right temple by a screaming Marshall bouncer, Lloyd was out like a light as he fell motionless on the pitch. Hospitalized for several days, he was left with permanent vision impairment, never returned to cricket until 1985, and failed to regain the form that would warrant a recall.