By Neto Baptiste
Former West Indies fast bowler and commentator, Michael Holding, is holding to his longtime views on the shortest and most entertaining format of the game, Twenty20 cricket.
Nicknamed the “Whispering Death” due to his quiet approach to the bowling crease, Holding, while speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, said his views on the format have not changed.
“Anybody can be successful at that thing because that doesn’t test anyone’s proper skills. You can go out, swing your bat for 20 balls, get 35 runs and somebody comes up and pats you on the back and tells you that you have done well. You have done well in 20 balls? That’s fine for that form and people may enjoy it and all that but I don’t see how that could be considered cricket, so I am not interested,” he said.
In the past, Holding said the T20 format of the game does not prove a payers ability as a cricketer and feared it would eventually result in the death of the longer format of the game, Test Cricket.
The Jamaican national said that as exciting as that format of the game is, is still refuses to watch a single match.
“The closest I came to a game was during Stanford in Antigua and I didn’t watch the game, I was in the ground but I refused to watch the game. I sat beside him [Stanford] one day because he wanted me to sit beside him on the balcony, perhaps for television purposes and so I sat beside him for about 15 to 20 minutes and when I thought I’d had enough of sitting beside him I got up and went back in,” Holding said.
Holding was part of the West Indies’ famed four-pronged pace attack that dominated the game in the 1970s and 1980s and included Antigua’s Andy Roberts, Barbados’ Joel Garner and Guyana’s Colin Croft.
During his career, he claimed 249 wickets in 60 Tests and 142 wickets in 102 One Day International (ODI) matches.