Thread:
He used to deliver from the heavens. And facing him could be hell.
Joel Garner born #onthisday 1952 was 6’8”. The tallest Test cricketer from the earliest days of the game till the bean-pole thin Bruce Reid inched past him.

There was nothing skinny about Garner. Extremely proportionate, when he ran in many a batsman had the eerie and distinctly disconcerting feeling that the bowler would trample him on his follow through.

Roberts was expressionless and ruthless, Holding silent and explosive, Marshall small and deadly, Croft mean and nasty. Garner could be brisk, although his pace never really touched the top level. But from some angles, primarily vertical, he was the most intimidating of them all.

His endless arms rose above his gigantic frame as he prepared to hurl the ball down. The eye line of the cowering batsman met the small red cherry nestled in those enormous fingers, and inevitably the angle carried the sight way beyond the sightscreen. And then he delivered.

The ball could be just about short of good length, but would rear up and make for the ribs and throat. Else there would be a toe-crushing yorker, the best in the game since the thunderbolts of Charlie Griffith if anecdotes are anything to go by.

Not for nothing was he known as the ‘Big Bird’. The indigenous Caribbean species Doctor Bird, the national bird of Jamaica, is remarkable for its stilt-like legs. Garner was quite naturally named after this curious avian variety.

Garner was quite often unplayable, and almost always unhittable
259 wickets in 58 Tests at 20.97 apiece are incredible, the lowest avg among 200-plus bar Marshall’s 20.94. The economy rate 2.47 is one of the best in the post-1970 era, the most miserly among the great WI quartet

In 98 ODIs he got 146 wickets at 18.84, the best for anyone with 35+ wickets. The economy of 3.09 the best among all those who captured 20+ wickets. The closest among bowlers with more than 100 wickets is Richard Hadlee, and his economy rate was 3.30. A difference of 7%.

Yes, it was almost impossible to score off Garner. When a debutant Dean Jones was busy fending balls off his rib cage at Port-of-Spain, the towering bowler reminded him, “The only drive you get here is to and from the ground.” No idle metaphor that.
Born 16 Dec 1952 #onthisday