The Rolls Royce that whispered death

MICHAEL HOLDING'S bowling action was so streamlined and seemingly effortless, that Geoffrey Boycott called him the Rolls-Royce of fast bowlers and umpire Dicky Bird described him as Whispering Death, getting closer to the batsman's viewpoint than the English opener did. When Holding ran in and he had a long run-up, he made less noise than that Rolls-Royce with a ticking clock made memorable by David Ogilvy. "I never carried much weight, was light on my feet, and I didn't pound the turf on the way in," Holding himself says.

Born on February 16, 1954, Michael Anthony Holding was one of Jamaica's most distinguished fast bowlers. He was, among other things, the inspiration for another great fast bowler who fashioned his action after Holding's fellow Jamaican, Courtney Walsh, who has reached the very peak after surpassing Kapil Dev's record of 434 Test wickets.

Unlike some other West Indian fast bowlers, Holding was not big and strong, but naturally wiry. He improved his muscle power through weight training. All ten wickets in an innings in the Senior Cup competition in 1974, earned him the first use of the new ball in the Jamaican team for the Shell Shield next season over two senior bowlers, Uton Dowe and Junior Williams. The previous season, he had bowled 24 overs without being rewarded as Clive Lloyd and Alvin Kallicharran put on 241 for the fifth wicket. This time round, he did much better, dismissing Fredericks for 8 and Kallicharran for nought, and in the process, impressing the captain of the opposition, who happened to be the West Indies captain as well. Clive Lloyd was convinced that Michael Holding was ready to partner Andy Roberts in a Test match.

In time, Holding became a key member of the four-man demolition squad that dominated West Indies and world cricket for a decade. But the early days were frustrating. He met with better success with the bat, scoring 34 in a fighting recovery from 99 for 6 to 214 all out in his very first Test at Brisbane, Australia. Holding rarely batted again at number eight, but he was infinitely more productive with the ball than he was on his debut. He had to wait until the next Test match at Perth, and that too, not before he bowled a short, rising delivery at tailender Max Walker, following Andy Robert's friendly advice.

At the end of a career that lasted a little over a decade, Holding took 249 Test wickets at 23.68 runs apiece, with 8 for 92 against England in the first innings of the Oval Test 1976 his best performance. He took 14 wickets in that match, again his best for a Test match. In 102 one-day internationals, he claimed 142 wickets for a miserly average of 21.36, yielding no more than 3.32 runs per over overall. In two World Cups, he took 20 wickets for 342 runs with an amazing economy rate of 2.96!

Here was a Rolls-Royce that tended to break down every now and then. Injuries and his appearances in Kerry Packer's WSC reduced Holding's Test appearances somewhat. That he took only 60 Tests to capture 249 wickets puts Michael Holding in the top bracket of strike bowlers. Describing the feared quartet of Andy Roberts, himself, Colin Croft and Joel Garner before another West Indian fast bowling great, Malcolm Marshall, came on the scene. Holding says in his autobiography: I would put our quartet at its peak between 1979-80, when we toured Australia in the first season following the end of World Series Cricket, and 1981 when England toured the Caribbean. We were all still comparatively young (Andy was the oldest at 29, yet we all had a lot of experience and were physically at our fittest. We each had a distinctive style so that Clive (Lloyd) always had a bowler up his sleeve to suit any eventuality.

The West Indies team of that period maintained marvellous standards of fitness and fielding. Catches were rarely dropped, and that was because, even on the morning of a Test, the team had a strenuous fielding practice session that invariably drew a big crowd marvelling at the catches being held. The West Indians were the first team in the world to appoint a full time physical fitness expert and train hard before and during a Test match. They were the first team to fascinate crowds the world over by running on to the field in their tracksuits a couple of hours before the start of a match.

It would be dishonest to state that Holding was a model of perfect behaviour throughout his career; he had a brush or two with the umpires in New Zealand and he played a leading role in the intimidation the West Indians under Lloyd unleashed at the Indian batsmen in the notorious Kingston Test of 1976. But barring those aberrations, he was a fine ambassador for West Indies cricket and a fine example for fast bowlers to follow, with a fluid action that enabled him to shorten his extra-long run-up midway through his career, with no noticeable loss of effect. After start-of-the-tour problems with his front foot, he went through his first Australian tour without bowling a single no-ball. When he was called for the first time in my career the following summer in a first class match in England, Clive Lloyd was so flabbergasted, he rushed up to find out what was going on. Holding did not have proper spikes on his boots, he was showing off a bit on his first Lord's appearance and it had indeed been a no-ball, not an umpiring error!

Holding enjoyed one-day cricket as much as Test cricket, though he feared that an excess of the latter will destroy cricketing skills in the long run. There were times when I felt more satisfaction coming off with 20 runs from my ten overs in a one- day international than if I'd taken three or four wickets in a Test. The fact is I enjoyed bowling through and through."

That in a nutshell explains why Michael Anthony Holding was such a great bowler.

V. RAMNARAYAN

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