Courtney WALSH

Fast bowling is back-breaking, feet-cracking work at the best of times, but when you do not get the new ball, or even bowl first-change, it must be purgatory. That is the state Jamaican Courtney Walsh found himself in for most of the time under the captaincy of Vivian Richards. Courtney came into the West Indies side during a 1984-85 tour to Australia and, with Marshall, Garner and Holding ahead of him, it is little wonder there was nothing for him to but bowl the last fill-up overs before an interval. In fact the trio did not need him at all in Walsh's debut in Perth, bowling Australia out for 76. He did not get to bowl until the second innings, when he took 2-43. Sometimes he was Richards fifth fast bowler, which meant he sat on the sidelines.

He took 4-74 against England in Trinidad in 1986, his only Test of the series, when the emergence of Patrick Patterson prevented him from moving up the pecking order. In New Zealand in 1986-87 he got to take the new ball for the first time, but it was a rare occurrence. He had some hard work on the flat pitches of India in 1987-88, taking 5-54 in Delhi and nine wickets in Bombay. The England tour of 1988 saw the emergence of Curtley Ambrose. Walsh's best was 4-46 at Old Trafford. In Australia in 1988-89 he had seven wickets in Brisbane including the strangest hat-trick in Test cricket, with one wicket to end the Australian first innings and two more at the start of the second. He grabbed a ten wicket haul in the Kingston Test against India in 1989. The same ground also saw 5-68 against England in 1990. In England in 1991, the end of the Richards era, Courtney's best was 4-64 at Trent Bridge. (Bob Harragan)

Courtney Walsh got the West Indian captaincy before he got the new ball, and when both came, in India in 1994-95, all the other great fast bowlers were missing. So were the best of the batsmen. Most had gone into retirement before or during the reign of Richie Richardson, which had begun with the last-ditch defeat of South Africa at Bridgetown in 1992, when Walsh and Ambrose swept through the African batting when victory was in sight. Walsh took 4-91 against the Australians at the MCG in 1993-94, and took three of the wickets as England were bundled out for 46 in Trinidad in 1994, also taking 5-94 in Bridgetown. After drawing the series in India he captained the side in New Zealand in 1995, taking 7-37 and 6-18 in the Wellington Test. Richardson returned to the captaincy against Australia in 1995, when Walsh took 6-54 in Antigua. In England later that year he had eight wickets, including 5-45, at Edgbaston. Ian Bishop, who bowled alongside him for most of these years, discovered an unlikely league table in which Walsh was classified as the fast bowler who had hit the most batsmen with bouncers. He was reinstated as captain against India in 1996, and in Australia in 1996-97, when the West Indies fought back from 2-0 down to win two Tests. Walsh had 5-98 in Sydney and 5-74 in Perth. In Pakistan in 1997-8 he fought a lone battle against defeat, taking 5-78 in Peshawar, 5-143 in Rawalpindi, and 4-74 in Lahore. Despite his personal success he saw the captaincy taken from him and given to Brian Lara. After much soul-searching he decided to continue. (Bob Harragan)

The final countdown to that moment when Courtney Walsh had Jacques Kallis given out lbw in Trinidad and took his 500th Test wicket had begun some years before. Jamaican fans constructed their own scoreboard and tallied off landmark after landmark. At first it was Malcolm Marshall's West Indian record of 376, then 400 wickets, then Kapil Dev's all-time Test record of 434. In England in 2000 Walsh received a message from Jack Russell, who had kept wicket to him for Gloucestershire for many years, telling him he must keep going to 500 where no man had been before. He bowled manfully through the 1998 England series, taking 4-51 in the fourth Test and seven wickets in the fifth.

He had seven more wickets at Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth in the first two Tests of a 1998-99 South African tour, and took 6-80 in the last match of the series at Centurion. There were seven wickets in three of the four Tests in Australia's 1999 visit to the Caribbean, including 5-39 in Barbados. By now the wickets were totting up, and the world record was near. Many thought he might pass it in the two Tests in New Zealand in 1999-2000, but he had a poor series. Wicket number 435 finally arrived in Kingston when Wavell Hinds caught Henry Olonga at short leg in the first Test against Zimbabwe. After that there was 5-22 against Pakistan in Bridgetown and 5-83 in Antigua.

The wickets kept piling up through England and Australia in 2000 and then came that memorable moment against the South Africans in Trinidad. Walsh called it a day at the end of that series thus bringing down the curtain on a wonderful Test career that had spanned all of 17 years - a truly remarkable achievement for a fast bowler. (Bob Harragan)