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Roy Edwin MARSHALL

In 1950, the touring West Indies won a famous victory in the Lord’s Test - their first on English soil. They then came to Southampton and, resting some senior players, selected 20-year-old Roy Marshall who entertained a huge Saturday crowd with a fine innings of 135.

This was not enough to secure his place in the Test side however and, after a handful of Tests, he joined Hampshire which, in those days, meant turning his back on his country. He had to qualify by residence, playing a few non-Championship matches in 1953 and 1954 before he formed a fine opening partnership with Jimmy Gray. In his first full season, 1955, he passed 2,000 runs (and took 26 wickets) and those runs and the entertaining manner in which he scored them contributed significantly to Hampshire finishing in third place – their best ever at that time.

The 1950s and early 1960s was the period of uncovered wickets in which bowlers dominated county cricket. A glance at the averages over those years will show many bowlers averaging around 20 or less while even good batsmen struggled to average 40 per innings. Marshall batted regularly against men such as Bedser, Trueman, Tyson, Statham, Jackson, Laker, Lock and Wardle – without a helmet of course and usually without a cap – and, in a career of twenty seasons and 504 matches, he passed fifty on 221 occasions, including 60 centuries for the county.

In 1958, Hampshire’s new captain, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, led his side to second place as Marshall again passed 2,000 runs in a very wet summer. He reached this figure – the mark of a top batsman – in every season from 1958 – 1962 and always in the most entertaining manner including the occasional six over third man which may be common enough in these days of the T20 but was virtually unheard of 50 years ago.

When Marshall passed 2,000 runs in 1961 he did so as part of a top four to match any in Hampshire’s long history. Marshall, Gray, Horton and Livingstone scored the runs and with Shackleton and White both passing 100 wickets and the all-round contributions of Sainsbury, Hampshire went to their first Championship title. He played some vital innings in that season, not least in victories over Surrey at the Oval and Essex on the Isle of Wight as well as 212 against Somerset.

Marshall continued to lead Hampshire’s batting through the 1960s and in 1966 he was appointed as the county’s first professional captain [pictured, below, as skipper with the 1968 side]. Oddly this enterprising and entertaining batsman was a cautious and somewhat defensive ‘skipper’ and while Hampshire had a couple of good Championship seasons under him they never challenged for the title. It was a shame too that his talents never contributed to success in the new limited-overs formats although, in 1969, he did lead them to second place in the brand new Sunday League.

By then Marshall had handed on his opening place to the new overseas star Barry Richards and both made valuable runs in that transitional period around 1970. In 1971 Marshall was disappointed to hand over as captain to Richard Gilliat but even in 1972 he scored 203 v Derbyshire and, on a mellow early autumn afternoon at the county ground where he had first announced himself, he hit an undefeated half-century against Yorkshire and took his leave of the adopted county that he served with such distinction.

He moved down to Somerset where, for some years, he was Chairman of their Cricket Committee in the days of Botham, Richards, Garner et al. He must have felt some kinship with the way those men played their cricket although he continued to appear at Northlands Road for our players’ reunions. Roy Marshall died in his early sixties but he is commemorated in various displays on the new ground and alongside his fellow Barbadian and namesake as you walk or drive into the stadium. Those of us fortunate enough to have seen him will never forget his batting and even in the future, historians will note that in scoring over 30,000 runs for the county he is second only to the great Phil Mead in his career record. That record will never be equalled.