His first representative match was a 40-over affair for West Indies Young Cricketers against their English equivalents at Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago in August 1976.

[13] Marshall's initial senior appearance was a Geddes Grant/Harrison Line Trophy (List A) match for Barbados on 13 February 1978; again he got out without scoring and did not take a wicket.

On the back of this single first-class appearance he was selected to tour India in 1978/79, many first-choice West Indian stars being unavailable having committed themselves to playing World Series Cricket.

[18] After 1980/81 he was out of the Test side for two years, but an excellent 1982 season with Hampshire when he took 134 wickets at under 16 apiece, including a career-best 8–71 against Worcestershire, saw him recalled and thereafter he remained a fixture until the end of his international career.

As of 2022 Marshall's performance in 1982 remains the highest haul of first-class wickets by any bowler in an English season for over fifty years, since a reduction in the annual number of County Championship matches in 1969.

His most productive series in this period was the 1983/84 rubber against India, when he claimed 33 wickets as well as averaging 34 with the bat and making his highest Test score of 92 at Kanpur.

[21] At the peak of his career, he turned down an offer of US$1 million to join a rebel West Indies team on a tour to South Africa, still suffering international sporting isolation due to apartheid.

In a Test series that came to be known as the "Blackwash", the West Indians completed a 5–0 triumph, to date the only visiting team in England to have achieved such a feat.

Marshall played a key role, taking the second-most wickets in the series with 24, behind only Joel Garner who took 29, and establishing his reputation as one of the finest bowlers in the world.

[24] In the first test at Edgbaston, which the West Indies won by an innings and 180 runs, he ended the Test career of local Warwickshire opener Andy Lloyd after half an hour; he had already faced a few short deliveries from both Marshall and Garner but was then caught unawares by a delivery from Marshall that rose sharply and struck him flush on the temple behind his right eye.

[34][33] His heroics by batting and bowling with a broken thumb also impressed his captain Clive Lloyd who recalled the incident as one of the greatest and most courageous efforts that he ever witnessed during his playing career.

A rising delivery broke the nose of England batsman Mike Gatting in a one-day match in February 1986; Marshall later found bone fragments embedded in the leather of the ball.

Marshall was coming towards the end of his international career, moreover, and though he took 11 wickets in the match against India at Port of Spain the following winter, he played his last Test at The Oval in 1991.

Whilst playing at Natal, his experience was invaluable, and his guidance was an influential spark in the early career of Shaun Pollock.

In his final senior appearance, against Western Province in a limited-overs game at Cape Town, the first of his two victims was his former international teammate Desmond Haynes.

In 1996, Marshall became coach both of Hampshire and the West Indies, although the latter's steadily declining standards during this period brought a considerable amount of criticism his way.

He married his long-term partner, Connie Roberta Earle, in Romsey on 25 September 1999, and returned to his home town, where he died on 4 November aged 41, weighing little more than 25 kg.

[42][43][44] "The worldwide outpouring of grief," wrote journalist-friend Pat Symes, "was testimony to the genuine love and admiration he engendered.

"[42] At the funeral service at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium in Wildey, Barbados, former West Indian fast bowler Rev.