BackGo well, Malcolm and Jonah
Only rarely do athletes as gifted as these grace our lives. And it is a gift
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I was roaming in Madagascar in 1991 when I first ever paid attention to rugby. This was before the days of widespread Internet access and I was mostly pretty far from TV sets. What I did have was a tiny shortwave radio. At the end of a hard day’s trek, after setting up my tent and washing off the grime in a nearby river, I’d sit on a rock and turn it on to get the cricket news. By the way, it was the first time I heard a certain Harsha Bhogle.
My guide, Blaid, would sit with me to listen, but had no patience for this peculiar game. “Let’s get the rugby news," he said once. The second-ever rugby World Cup was on at the time, and it was Blaid who introduced me to the ins and outs of the game. I mean, I had watched plenty of American football, but I knew nothing of rugby, its forebear and a far more free-flowing game. I could tell that even through my little radio. When we walked into the tiny village called Ampokafo one evening, we found a TV at someone’s house and watched a World Cup match that had even this rugby neophyte on the edge: Australia pipped Ireland by a point. I was hooked.
When the next World Cup rolled around in 1995, I followed it (on the same shortwave radio, actually). That tournament is famous as the subject of the film Invictusand for the flowering of a free-at-last South Africa. It is also known for the ascent to global fame of the great New Zealand player, Jonah Lomu. He was easily the best player in the tournament, even if he didn’t quite take New Zealand to the title. The hosts South Africa beat New Zealand in the final.
Of Tongan descent, Lomu was invariably an eye-catching presence on the field. At nearly two metres tall, and weighing nearly 120kg, he was a towering, intimidating and yet supremely athletic colossus on the field. When he got the ball, his muscular legs powered him to unexpected speeds: he could run the 100 metres in 10.8 seconds. Put that in perspective with these numbers: the Indian men’s and women’s 100 m records are 10.3 and 11.35 seconds, respectively.
Try to imagine 120kg of muscle coming at you at that speed. No wonder Lomu could be unstoppable on the field once he got those legs churning. I just watched one of the more famous moments of that 1995 Cup, from the England-New Zealand semifinal. Lomu simply runs over an English player, leaving him sprawled on the ground, clutching at air. It’s rare that a world-class athlete can be made to look as clumsy and hapless as that. Yet you feel there’s an inexplicable grace and fluidity to the encounter. That was special to Lomu too: at his best, his power was infused with those qualities.
Another English player, Brian Moore, had a suggestion that said it all: “I suppose you might stop him with an elephant gun." No elephant gun, but death finally stopped Jonah Lomu this week. He was long retired from rugby, of course, but still just 40: tragically young.
For me, his age was a reminder of another fierce competitor: Malcolm Marshall.
Marshall was part of Clive Lloyd’s West Indies cricket team that swept all before them in the 1970s and 80s. There were superstars in that team: Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Michael Holding and many more, including Lloyd himself. But Marshall was the enforcer; he bowled astonishingly fast and took plenty of wickets.
Yet Marshall was a smaller man. Actually, he stood 1.8 metres, but compared with fast bowling beanpoles like Joel Garner and Curtly Ambrose, he was a little guy. But in his craft, he was often nothing short of terrifying. Everyone who faced him or wrote about him mentions his fast arm. In his delivery stride, he whirled it over quicker than anyone else—it’s a blur even in slow-motion clips—and that’s what gave his balls their humming, brutal velocity. He had a deceptive bouncer that was almost more dangerous for coming from a shorter man. He could also swing the ball either way almost at will, and it was notoriously difficult to score off him. These skills produced plenty of match-winning performances for the West Indies. In 81 Tests, he racked up 376 Test wickets at an average of 20.94, among the best fast bowling records in cricketing history.
There was all that, but Garner once touched on his finest quality as a cricketer: “Malcolm’s real strength was that he never gave less than 100% for any side he played in. Pulling his weight for his team just meant everything to him." In that spirit, one of Marshall’s finest triumphs came after he broke his left thumb in two places while fielding in a 1984 Test against England. The medical advice was for him to stay away from cricket for 10 days. Regardless, he came out to bat one-handed to help teammate Larry Gomes get to his hundred, even stroking a one-handed four and chuckling afterward. Then he bowled with fire, taking seven English wickets to set up an easy West Indian win.
Only eight years after he retired, in 1999, death stopped this great cricketer. He was just 41: like Lomu, tragically young.
Is there something particularly sad about losing sporting idols while they are still young, even if they aren’t playing any more? Probably not, no more so than with other people taken too early. Then again, in this YouTube age you can watch and then watch again their electric feats on grounds the world over, and you feel again that rising tide of awe you remember from years gone by, and you know: only rarely do athletes as gifted as these grace our lives. And it is a gift.
So thank you for the memories, Malcolm and Jonah.
Once a computer scientist, Dilip D’Souza now lives in Mumbai and writes for his dinners. His latest book is Final Test: Exit Sachin Tendulkar.
Twitter: @DeathEndsFun
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