Although Roy Marshall gained more prominence through his exploits as Hampshire's flamboyant opening batsman, his brother Norman, six years his senior, was a valuable allrounder for Barbados and, briefly, for Trinidad during a lengthy career that coincided with the emergence of West Indies as a genuine force in the world game. He overcame a discouraging debut for Barbados, aged 17 (out for 0, batting No.11, and conceding 100 runs from 15 wicketless eight-ball overs against Trinidad) to develop into a sound batsman and a quickish, miserly offspinner. When Roy joined him at Barbados in 1946, aged 15 years nine months, then the West Indies' youngest first-class cricketer, Norman was already established in a powerful team that featured an emerging triumvirate of prolific batsmen known as the Three Ws. According to Jeffrey Stollmeyer, he was "the steadiest offspinner in West Indies cricket at the time" and unlucky to be omitted from the inaugural tour of India two years later and to England in 1950. Indeed, he was chosen only once for West Indies, against Australia at Georgetown in 1955, aged 31. The circumstances of Norman's selection reflected the haphazard nature of West Indies cricket prior to the creation of the Shell Shield as an annual regional tournament in 1966. His previous first-class match, for Trinidad, where he was then working, against Jamaica, had been two months earlier when he received notice of his call-up on return from one of his regular deep-sea fishing trips. Australia won the Test by eight wickets and, although Marshall justified his inclusion with match figures of 46.3-22-62-2, he was promptly dropped. He signed off the following year with an even 100 and seven wickets in his penultimate match for Barbados, against EW Swanton's team of county players, among them Colin Cowdrey, Tom Graveney, Micky Stewart and Frank Tyson. His executive position with the Singer company subsequently carried him to Peru and Venezuela where he played as much cricket as the expatriate communities afforded, always with the same fierce competitiveness he showed in more illustrious company. On his return to Barbados, to join the directorate of the island's largest company, he turned out in the lower divisions for his original club, Wanderers, well into his 50s, joining the club's occasional touring teams to England, led by his close friend, Peter Short, a former West Indies Cricket Board president.
Tony Cozier, The Wisden Cricketer