Lara: Holder can be awesome leader

Lara: Holder can be awesome leader

Published: Guardian
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
DUBAI—Former West Indies captain Brian Lara has backed young Test captain Jason Holder to become “an awesome leader” but believes he first requires the full support of the West Indies Cricket Board. Holder became West Indies’ youngest ever Test captain at age 23 when he was appointed to the position last September, ahead of the tour of Sri Lanka.

And while results have hardly been flattering, Lara said Holder needed the trust of his employers in order to succeed. “I think Jason could be an awesome captain and an awesome leader. He first of all has the ability to be in a team which is very important,” said Lara, who led West Indies in 47 of his 131 Tests.

“It is also very important that if you entrust a 23 or 24-year-old with the job of captaining the West Indies team, you have to make sure that you give him the support that is necessary. He has to have the confidence that he will be there for [an extended] period of time.

“If his performances are going to be judged too harshly then that does not make sense, as he doesn’t have the experience to do the job [at the moment].”

West Indies lost both Tests away to Sri Lanka and were soundly beaten 2-0 in the subsequent three-Test series against Australia Down Under. The Caribbean side have won just one of their last ten Tests—a shock five-wicket win over England last May at Kensington Oval in Barbados.

Lara, West Indies’ all-time leading run-scorer with 11 953 runs, blamed the WICB for the regional side’s marked decline in world cricket.

“We have got a lot of things wrong in West Indies cricket. I believe that administratively we haven’t been doing the right thing. There is not effort being made to create a proper academy for our youngsters,” the 46-year-old lamented.

“The West Indies Cricket Board really hasn’t grasped what is necessary and unfortunately we are lingering at the bottom of world cricket.”

Holder is also the West Indies one-day captain and led the side at the Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand last February.

The greatest indignity will be the West Indies’ absence from the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and never before have they been with their noses pressed on the glass from the outside.

Creating an academy is one thing. However, its is clear that many of our youngsters are not interested in cricket, and that's why West Indies Cricket is now struggling to unearth reasonably good talent. They deem test cricket to be boring, however, many will gravitate to T20 format because of  the sustainable level of excitement it may be able to generate. The appeal of games like Basketball and soccer is overshadowing the interest in cricket, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Maybe T20 cricket could probably be a saviour of West Indies Cricket.

Holder may not be the best player out there, but he most certainly has an affinity for Test Cricket and has shown he is committed to West Indies Cricket unlike many of his team mates which have chosen greener pastures and fatter pay checks over playing for their country. He is very inspirational and I feel that is the quality the West Indies need most in their leader right now; they have requisite talent to be competitive, just need an extra bit of support and motivation to be better.