Devon's Above! 'Destroyer' Is Enough To Set Pulses Racing

Peter Hayter just about recalls the time he faced a few fierce deliveries from England’s quickest ever out-and-out paceman

- Peter Hayter

One hesitates to mention alcohol in the current climate, but England’s last Test match at the WACA means this is my final opportunity to recall in print not only the most terrifying experience of my “professional” career, but also the most exhilarating, and to admit to the vital part played in it by drink.

So the time has come for you to prepare yourselves for the story of the day I faced Devon Malcolm, arguably the quickest and scariest out-and-out pace bowler England have ever produced, on the fastest, bounciest batting surface on the planet.

When proposed to me by the marketing chaps at the then Test and County Cricket Board I have to admit I had taken the idea with more than a pinch of salt.

Back in the summer of 1994, the England spearhead had just produced the spell against South Africa that prompted President Nelson Mandela, when meeting him for the first time, to greet him with the words: “I know you. You are the destroyer.”

In the final Test at The Oval known forever as Malcolm’s match, the gentle giant had been stirred by the removal of his helmet badge by Fanie de Villiers to warn him and his teammates, “you guys are history”, and he lived up to that promise by taking 9-57 in 99 balls, sending down deliveries upwards of 95mph at batsmen you could see trembling with fear.

His bowling that day was brutal and devastating and led the editor of the Board’s 1995 summer magazine to lean across the Press box table and ask me if I would be prepared to have a bat against him, naturally in carefully controlled conditions, then to write about the event so that I could try and explain to their readers what that was like for someone not paid to play cricket for a living.

“Of course,” I laughed, hardly looking up from my laptop.