Former West Indies pacer Patrick Patterson has had some difficulties since his untimely exit from cricket. According to reports, he is now something of a recluse, dealing with his fair share of issues.

In his playing days, however, he provided loads of excitement to many.

At full tilt he was one of the game’s most thrilling sights. His bowling action, with left leg lifted, chest high before slamming down with an almighty force, hinted of pure menace as the ball left his hands at lightning pace.

Wicketkeeper Jeffrey Dujon said, of all the bowlers to whom he kept wicket, Patterson hit his gloves the hardest. Dujon, it must be remembered, kept wicket to Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Curtly Ambrose, Sylvester Clarke, and Ian Bishop.

Patterson made his first-class debut for Jamaica in 1982-83, playing two games and capturing four wickets. Apparently unimpressed, the Jamaican selectors never entrusted him with a regular spot. But, captivated by his pace when he faced him in the nets, West Indies Captain Clive Lloyd helped to secure a contract with Lancashire for their 1984 season and, later that year, he represented Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield.

The next season he returned to the Caribbean an improved bowler. Current secretary of the West Indies Player’s Association and then opening batter for Jamaica, Wayne Lewis, said that when Patterson reported for the beginning of the 1985-86 Shell Shield season, “he was bigger, fitter. You could see the experience. Playing in England gave him more confidence”.

Guyana was the first team to step into the fast bowler’s line of fire. Batting first, they were dismissed for 41. Patterson, who along with Walsh, Holding, and the very capable Aaron Daley formed a world-class four-pronged pace attack, took 7/24. Walsh took eight wickets in the second innings and Jamaica, given a hard time by Guyana’s spinners, won by three wickets.

It was then the turn of the Leeward Islands. They arrived with an intimidating batting unit, headed by none other than their captain and world batting king Viv Richards. It also included heir to the throne Richie Richardson, along with regional stalwarts like Luther Kelly, Ralston Otto, and Enoch Lewis. They were blown away for 77 in the first innings and 162 in the second —Patterson 3/18 and 4/37.

Asked, upon setting foot on Jamaican soil, if he dreaded the home teams pace unit, the “Master Blaster” responded, “Wait until you see my pace.” He had within his ranks, West Indies fast bowlers Winston Benjamin and Eldine Baptiste, alongside George Ferris and Anthony Merrick, who both played county cricket.

But they were nothing compared to Patterson. The big Jamaican knocked over Richardson in both innings and captured Richards’ prized scalp in the second. “When Richie Richardson came out [to bat] you could see the fear in his eyes. It’s like he wanted to send for a helmet, but didn’t because of ego,” remarked Lewis.

Next in line were England, who toured during the 1985-86 season. Graham Gooch was a highly regarded and highly skilled opener for England. This is what he wrote in his autobiography: “At that point, for the first and, I think, only time, I began saying to myself, ‘Graham, it might be doing yourself a favour if you get out, this boy Patterson is really firing and it could get very nasty indeed. If you don’t watch it you could be hit very badly.’ It was the only time I thought I might be hurt at the crease. Now, I found that I was crouching very low, knees really bent, even before Patterson was into his delivery stride. Not a good feeling at all.” Gooch, in the words of John Keats in Ode to a Nightingale, was “half in love with easeful death”.

The Sabina Park surface was dicey, and Patterson, on debut, was bowling like the wind. England had the misfortune of being the first international team to feel his fury, and considering the visitors also had Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, and Joel Garner to contend with, it must have been an overall daunting experience. As problematic as the other fast men were, however, it was Patterson who was the most frightening.

The visitors first got sight of Patterson during the first One Day International (ODI) that was played prior to the first Test. This was the game of Mike Gatting’s infamous broken nose. Tim Robinson and David Gower faced four deliveries apiece when Patterson dismissed them before they had scored. “Then Gatting and I,” related Gooch, “got us into the 40s, when Gatt went to hook Malcolm Marshall. He missed and the ball smashed into his nose.”

Marshall picks up the story in his autobiography with Pat Symes: “As the other West Indian players rushed to his aid I couldn’t bear to look. I could feel myself close to passing out, my head went dizzy, and I thought I was going to be sick…I went to pick up the ball and to my horror I found a piece of Gatting’s nose bone lodged in the seam. I dropped it like a hand grenade, the feeling of nausea surging back.” Bowled out for 145, England lost the game by six wickets. Gatting, in fine form early in the tour, had to return home for treatment.

The Test match began three days later. Patterson, new to the team, eager to impress and to enhance his burgeoning reputation for electric pace, was raring to go. Malcolm Marshall was, by then, the leader of the attack, and if there was little of Marshall’s nuance in Patterson’s bowling, there was all of Marshall’s pace, and then some. Long-time West Indian commentator, the late Tony Cozier, who would have seen most of the game’s express bowlers going back to the 1950s, said Patterson could bowl a cricket ball as fast as any man ever has, and favourable comparisons to the brutally quick Jeff Thomson were not unfounded.

In that Sabina Park Test, England were flattened for 159 and 152, and West Indies won by 10 wickets. Patterson, 7/74 in the game, won the Man-of-the-Match award as much for the wickets he grabbed as for the terror he generated.

England never recovered from the scars inflicted at Sabina Park. Only one batter, David Gower, averaged over 30, and there were only 10 half-centuries from them the whole tour. In contrast, eight West Indian batters, including Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding, averaged over 30, and there were four centuries, including Richards’ record-breaking 56-ball hundred in Antigua, and 12 fifties.

Patterson remained a threat throughout, snatching 19 wickets at 22.42. It was to be his most productive series. Marshall and Garner captured 27 wickets apiece, while Holding took 16 in four games.

The West Indies’ abundance of high-class fast bowling options during that period meant that Patterson was not able to claim a permanent spot. His pace never deserted him, but he never managed to develop enough skills to sufficiently augment his terrifying speed. He had a few good series, most notably in India in 1987-88, and when he made a comeback against Australia in the West Indies in 1991-92.

In Australia, in 1988-89 he was struggling through a tough series when Steve Waugh, spurred on by vocal close-in fielders, bowled him a number of short-pitched deliveries. It is reported that an angry Patterson ventured into the Australian dressing room at the end of the day threatening to “kill” them the next day. The result? Patterson 5/39 and Australia shot out for 114.

In 28 Tests Patterson captured 93 wickets at 30.9. He last appeared in West Indies colours in 1993 in Cape Town in an ODI against Pakistan. Apparently, the fast bowler had a falling out with the authorities on the previous tour of Australia.

Today, he is rarely seen in public, and rarely receives visitors.