Beware the quiet man

SOMETHING ODD has happened over the years to the reputation of Michael Holding and the invincible 1970s and 1980s West Indians. Holding is now regarded as one of the all-time greats of the game; he is a fixture in the Sky box, his opinion sought by the ICC and the WICB alike. Other pundits, meanwhile, lament the decline of West Indies cricket and look back wistfully to the golden age of Holding’s playing days.

But Holding has spotted revisionism at work. The West Indies side that lost just one Test series between 1975 and 1995 was not regarded at the time with any great affection, outside the Caribbean. Quite the reverse: their fearsome all-pace attacks, led by Holding and Andy Roberts, were often seen as unsporting and likely to kill off the game. “It isn’t good for the game was a regular cry,” Holding recalls
of the Windies heyday.
“I believe the criticism
of our approach was based on jealousy, pure and simple.”

Holding thinks, frankly, that plenty of observers are actually glad that West Indies cricket is now at a low ebb and quotes with a raised eyebrow a series of critical articles by former Wisden editor David Frith, one suggesting, extraordinarily, that the ’70s Windians game plan was founded on “vengeance and violence… fringed by arrogance.”

Just as you’d want, Holding also gives the notion that the Waugh/Ponting Australia team was in any way better than his legendary Windies side remarkably short shrift. There’s passion and insight here and some of the same kind of righteous anger that we have seen previously in memoirs from Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash , though with more substantial, even political, grievances at its root.

Holding’s memoir goes off into lengthy column-style critiques of aspects of the modern game – but his passion and status makes these chapters must-read material. Who will provide, for instance, a better insider’s view of Sir Allen Stanford’s work within West Indies cricket? Holding’s initial suspicions of Stanford related to the latter’s newbie’s obsession with Twenty20 – a form of the game Holding professes to have little interest in.But Holding eventually spends 10 months on the Stanford Board of Legends and his rather testy account of the episode provides a fresh perspective on the affair from someone who both knows West Indies cricket intimately and has its best interests at heart. “Both Stanford and Bush were rich men from Texas,” he concludes, “and further proof that no amount of money can buy class.”

As for the reasons behind the West Indies declining fortunes, Holding thinks the old notion that American sports have somehow superceded cricket in the affections of Caribbean teenagers is entirely false. He outlines his own reasons and solutions, though intriguingly, he seems to put the original decline in Test performances partly down to the sacking of one particular coach: he maintains the catalyst for  the West Indies’ ’80s invincibility was the chance appointment of Aussie physio Dennis Waight to look after them during Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket series. Waight, coming from a rugby league background, put the West Indies fast bowlers on an unprecedented regime; his departure, after 23 years, in 2000 is put down to player power from a new squad not prepared to put in the hard yards.

Holding has strong, well-expressed views, but for one of the greats of the game, he comes across as unassuming, even humble: picked for his first overseas tour in 1975, he is more concerned at missing the family Christmas in Jamaica than elated at the chance of going to Australia (possibly correctly: the Windies lost 5-1, Holding was reduced to tears of frustration and considered packing it in.)

There’s another humble moment when, on the back of the Windies ramming Tony Greig’s ‘grovel’ comments back down his throat in 1976, Greig offers Holding a £10,000 contract at Sussex for 1977. At the time, West Indies players were making around £100 a match from Tests, but Holding turned down this lucrative contract, he says, because, “I did not see myself as a professional cricketer. “

In fact, Holding held his job in computers with the Jamaican government right up until 1981. Finally enticed into county cricket, Holding notes the overly comfy culture in county cricket, with plenty of batters happy to take an early bath against himself or Joel Garner and fill their boots against a mediocre attack the following week.

Happily, all those years of sitting next to Bob Willis for Sky seem to have rubbed off on Holding when it comes to assessing his time with Derbyshire. “The only disappointing aspect of playing for Derby,” he laments, “was the fact that our team wasn’t all that good.” Duncan Steer