Fast bowling great Garner turns 70

By Keith Holder

Today is very special for Barbados and West Indies fast bowling great Joel Garner, who celebrates his 70th birthday. Born December 16, 1952, Garner received his Primary school education at St. Christopher Boys’, within walking distance from his lifetime residence in Enterprise, Christ Church.

He then entered Boys’ Foundation School and played in the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) Ronald Tree Cup Under-15 Tournament, eventually moving on to the school’s Second and Intermediate division teams. Garner also turned out for the Barbados Under-19 team before joining Cable & Wireless, where he was an employee as well. He next played for YMPC in the BCA First division Championship (now renamed the Elite division).

Considered one of the greatest-ever fast bowlers, Garner represented West Indies in 58 Test matches between 1977 and 1987, capturing 259 wickets at a remarkable average of 20.97. Affectionately called “Big Bird” or to some, simply “Bird” or “The Doc” with an amazing height of 6ft 8 inches, Garner was part of a very formidable West Indies fast bowling attack, which included the likes of Andy Roberts (now Sir Andy), Michael Holding, Colin Croft and the late Malcolm Marshall in an all- conquering team captained by Clive Lloyd (now Sir Clive).

Garner also took 146 wickets (Ave: 18.84) at a miserly economy rate of 3.09 runs an over in 98 One- Day Internationals. He was a member of the 1979 West Indies World Cup side, who won the Championship and his five for 38 in the Final against England at Lord’s remains the best performance by a bowler in a World Cup Final. He played in the 1983 Tournament as well.

In 214 first-class matches, Garner grabbed 881 wickets at 18.53 runs apiece. He was also a sharp fielder at gully and would argue, too, that he was no slouch with the bat, boasting of a first-class century. Garner captained Barbados for the first time in 1986 when the team won the Shell Shield first-class Championship and was again the skipper the following season.

He played for Littleborough in the Central Lancashire League in 1976 and 1977, and represented Somerset in the English County Championship from 1977 to 1986. Garner had more than a taste of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, and also played for South Australia in the Sheffield Shield Championship in 1982-83. It has been reported that batsmen would say the overriding feeling when first confronted by Garner was that he would trample on them such was the foreshortening effect of his enormous height.

Delivered from the clouds it seemed, and at a lively pace that when the mood took could be cranked up to the brisk side of rapid, the ball would rear alarmingly from barely short of a length. Allied to that was the most devastating toe crunching yorker the game had seen since that of Charlie Griffith (now Sir Charles).

Garner was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1980 and was awarded the MBE in 1984 for services to sport. He was named among the West Indies Cricket Annual Cricketers of the Year on four occasions (1977, 1982, 1984 and 1986). In 1990, he attended Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education and completed a diploma in Management studies. Back in October 2006, Garner was voted as the highest rated Test bowler of all time on the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) rankings, which were decided by the highest ratings achieved at a particular point for players rather than sustained success over a long period of time.

Typically modest, he said: “To tell you the truth, I really don’t have any feelings in terms of what is happening. “I made my contributions while I was a member of the West Indies cricket team and I was interested in just playing cricket and doing well for West Indies. “I suppose that statistics will be there for the people who want to look at them and talk about them. What I am going to say to you is that while I was playing cricket and representing the West Indies and whoever, the intention was to do well and to try and do your best regardless to what was happening and the conditions that you were playing in. “I was lucky to have played cricket with quite a few people who could be considered as better players than I was, so it’s just stats as I would say.”

Croft, who made his Test debut with Garner against Pakistan at Kensington Oval, said Garner was deserving of the accolade. “During the time I played he was the best bowler around,” Croft remarked. “Some people thought it was Malcolm Marshall but he (Garner) was the most difficult to get away and the yorker he bowled was the best I’ve ever seen. “He was so tall and when he extended his arm when he jumped the ball must have been coming down from ten to 12 feet, which is very difficult to face.

“Bowling with three other fast bowlers, he had to work hard to get five wickets. By comparison Richard Hadlee (who was fourth on the list) playing for New Zealand had the run of the roost,” Croft said. In 2010, Garner was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame, by the ICC and the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA), along with another West Indies fast bowling great, Courtney Walsh.

“The best part of cricket is to keep loving the game of bowling and the game of cricket and honoured to receive this award,” Garner said.

“This is one of the greatest awards I have received. It is not just for me but for the people I represented. I also want to thank people I played with for helping me to reap success.”

In July this year, Garner was among eight inductees in the inaugural Christ Church Foundation School Sports’ Hall of Fame.

After retiring from international cricket, Garner was employed at the NATION Publishing Company in Customer Relations, and later at the Advocate newspaper as distribution manager. He was also a newspaper columnist for both the NATION and Advocate. His column was titled, The Bird in Flight.

Garner worked at the National Sports Council from 1997 until his retirement in 2019. He served as a member of the BCA Board of Management before becoming president for ten years, from 2007 to 2017. He was also a director of the West Indies Cricket Board (now renamed Cricket West Indies). In addition, he was a Barbados and West Indies selector, as well as a West Indies team manager.

The bowling ends at Kensington Oval are named after Joel Garner (northern) and Malcolm Marshall (southern). Garner was also chairman of the Board of Management of Foundation School and patron of the popular Foundation Joel Garner Twenty20 cricket Tournament, which started in 2009 as part of the celebrations marking the school’s 200th anniversary. The Tournament ran until 2014.

Garner is married to Heather, a retired schoolteacher. They are the proud parents of one daughter, Jewel, who is a lawyer and former beauty queen and grandparents of Jordyn and Brady Joel.

Keith Holder is a veteran, award-winning freelance sports journalist, who has been covering local, regional and International cricket since 1980 as a writer and commentator. He has compiled statistics on the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) Division 1 (rebranded Elite in 2012) Championship for four decades and provides statistics and stories for the BCA website (www.barbadoscricket.org). Email: Keithfholder@gmail.com