There was a job to do!

Why West Indies’ fast bowling great Michael Holding, who ended his three-decade long commentary career recently, pulled no punches in the commentary box; was severe on reckless attitude of players

I have always been very forthright in the commentary box, prepared to call a spade a spade and some of the West Indian fans do not like me being critical of their team. In their opinion, as a former West Indies cricketer, I should be saying only complimentary things about the West Indies team. To that I can only say, l am not a West Indies commentator, I am a commentator from the West Indies.

Only commentators from the West Indies can really understand what it is like. 

Sometimes the players can react. Since I’ve begun broadcasting, some have taken such offence that they have refused to speak to me. One West Indies player even brought me up in a team meeting saying, ‘Why is he so critical? He used to be one of us.’ Can you imagine that? A team meeting of all places.

The majority of players understand why I say what I say. I still have a lot of friends in the West Indies team because they know that no malice is intended. They know that if I make a mistake I will apologise and they know that I will praise them when it is deserved. Some have listened to me on the radio or television and come to me for advice. Daren Powell, the West Indies fast bowler and Phil Simmons and lan Bishop spring to mind immediately and there have been others. I have criticised Daren heavily on air. At Chester-le-Street in 2007 the West Indies were trying to save a game, with himself and Chanderpaul at the crease and he got out to a ridiculous shot.

West Indies lost. ‘He should’ve been dropped for that shot,’ I said. But Daren knew he had made an error and he didn’t take it personally. I coached him when he was starting out as a fast bowler for Jamaica and he still comes to me to talk about his game.

Phil’s 1994 batting problems

Phil Simmons was opening for West Indies on the 1994 one-day tour of India and had heard that I was tutting away at how he was playing across the line and as a result getting out cheaply. We were in Cuttack and I was doing commentary, high up in this tower that overlooked the ground, when I got a message that Simmons was waiting to see me at the bottom of the steps. If that sounds threatening to you, I can assure you that I felt the same. I didn’t know whether he had come along with his cricket bat and was going to hit me across the line or he just wanted a chat. But I went down anyway. ‘What can you suggest for my batting problems?’ he asked.

Bishop had been having problems with his back in his later days with the West Indies team and I didn’t think he was bowling as well as he could, so I said it. In Barbados I think my comment was something like, ‘He’s not bowling as well as before; he’s not the same lan Bishop.’ He came to me for help.

Even my own family have struggled to comprehend my desire to tell it like it is. I have been close friends with Ramnaresh Sarwan for many years and he owns a house only 15 minutes down the road from my home in Miami. He once got out hooking in a Test match in Trinidad, which contributed no end to the West Indies losing the Test and I told the viewers it a ‘brainless’ shot. Well, I got it in the neck for that. Not from Ramnaresh but Laurie-Ann, my wife. ‘How can you say that?’ she shouted at me. ‘He’s been like a son!’ She has always looked upon him as family. I think that proves that I am not in this business to protect friends.

One man who has not been described as my friend is Brian Lara. Some will argue that I have gone out of my way to attack the man, rather than defend him. It is another example of people believing that I am making personal comments instead of calling the action as I see it. People think I don’t like Lara because I have often berated him for not putting the team first. It is not true that I don’t like him as a person. If I didn’t like Lara, I just wouldn’t talk to him. I sat down with him in my hotel room for 45 minutes or more in Guyana some years ago after he approached me for a chat about what was going on in his life.

Letting my heart rule my head

I do not sit behind the mic purely to please people, to only tell them what they want to hear. My job is to tell them how I see it on the field and be objective. I have been guilty a few times of letting my heart rule my head. 

I blew my top in Melbourne on the West Indies’ 2000-01 tour. Shane Warne was bowling to a young batsman called Ricardo Powell. He was pretty new to the team. It was a one-day series after the Tests had been completed and throughout the tour there had been some very poor umpiring decisions—a large number of them in favour of Australia. I had a little running battle, if you could call it that, with Bill Lawry over these umpiring decisions. I was keeping a score sheet because I was so disgusted by what I saw as a bias towards the home team. Warne managed to sneak one past Powell’s bat to hit him on the pad. He must have been hit on the front foot about nine feet down the pitch from the stumps but Warne, as was his wont, led a huge appeal and the umpire fell for it. Bill turned to me and joked, ‘How many is that now, Mikey?’ I was furious. ‘I don’t care now, I’ve lost count,’ I said. ‘I’m wondering whether he would have been given out if he’d been wearing green and yellow.’ 

1988
The year Michael Holding started doing commentary 

Excerpted from No Holding Back, published by Orion Books, distributed by Hachette

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