62: Michael Holding

60 matches. 249 wickets @ 23.69. Strike rate: 50.92. 13x 5wi.

11 years. 2x good. 3x excellent. 4x outstanding.

The discussion

Whispering Death. It is, without any doubt, the best nickname of any athlete I have ever heard.[1] Everything about this nickname is wonderfully apt. It’s the perfect representation of Michael Holding’s bowling in just two words. The remaining 1262 words of this discussion won’t come close to eclipsing such a brilliant summary.

But Holding’s career was too entertaining to stop there.

The reason the moniker is so brilliant is that the whispering part perfectly describes Holding’s approach to the wicket. The English umpire Dickie Bird famously claimed he couldn’t hear a sound when Holding ran in. The run up was pure athleticism — by Holding’s own account he ran exactly as far as he needed to in order to reach top speed. That he seemed to start his run from near the sightscreen is neither here nor there, because his approach was so lithe, and so fluid, it seemed like he was gliding on ice, as opposed to pounding into the turf. On the spectrum of approaches to the wicket, Michael Holding, whose running technique looks lithe and effortless, like a cheetah or a bird skimming across the surface of a lake was at one end, and Merv Hughes, who ran in like a snorting, charging rhino, was at the other. Both devastating to watch in their own way. 

The action? Again, as athletic and as aesthetically pleasing as you could ask for. Tall and powerful through the crease, Holding used his height, his long limbs and core strength to his every advantage. His action is a sports scientist’s dream. The biomechanics are just about perfect in every respect. And what’s interesting is that it doesn’t look manufactured. It’s possible to create a good bowling action in a lab, on a computer simulator, or in software. It always seems to look manufactured though, and you can see it when that translates onto the field. The bowler looks like a facsimile, and I can think of a few current international cricketers that I’d include in this category. Holding was an original. A first press; a first edition. A unique, wonderful, beautiful bowler to watch. And, I imagine, a frightening, terrifying prospect to face.

Over the years, there has been a lot of debate about the tactics of the West Indian fast bowlers of Holding’s era. There was at the time, and there has been since, criticism of the tactics of short-pitched bowling, or the intimidation factor. I think this argument holds no water for several reasons. Firstly, other nations, England and Australia chief among them, had employed similar tactics, either in previous eras (bodyline), or immediately prior to the rise of the West Indies (Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, in particular). Similar tactics have been used since, and in 2005 it was a four-man pace attack that won England their tremendous Ashes victory. Second, the West Indian batters dealt with the short ball as well as anyone (none better than Viv Richards), proving that they were up for the challenge of dealing with any reciprocal treatment. Lastly, and I think this is important, I don’t remember ever having read an opponent criticising the West Indian tactics. Maybe the stories are there, but I can’t recall seeing one come to light, which tells me that although the bowling might have been physically intimidating, and highly challenging to a player’s technique and mental strength to stay in a sustained physical contest, it didn’t cross the line into desire to inflict physical harm[2]. It’s called Test cricket, after all.

Back to Holding himself. I went to the YouTube early (and often) in my research for this article, mainly because I just wanted to watch him run. And bowl, of course. So, to open, let’s take a look at Holding bowling in Australia:

https://youtu.be/lClwE2NBU_Q

Fast. Hostile. A thorough examination of the temperament and technique of any batter. It doesn’t get much more ‘Test cricket’ than that.

Here’s what fellow Hall of Famer Geoffrey Boycott had to say about Michael Holding.

Boycott was, of course, the unlucky batter to have been facing when, in Barbados in 1981,  Holding bowled ‘the greatest over of all-time’. Footage emerges sporadically on YouTube, so if you can find it, and it’s still there, make sure you watch it. Boycott, who possessed the greatest technique of his era, and perhaps one of the greatest techniques of all-time, was caught on the hop. He fended, he jumped about, and was made to look entirely uncomfortable. He was clinging on for dear life for five balls, before the last ball ripped his stumps out of the ground and sent them cartwheeling towards the slips cordon. I cannot remember seeing a better over. And to think, according to Boycott in that video, Holding often looked like he bowled well within himself. Wowsers.

We could talk all day about the grace and beauty of Holding’s bowling, but before we come to The Verdict we had better jump over to the stats desk for a minute.

Holding’s numbers are exactly what I’d expect from a player that was a dominant force as a bowler, but who was also surrounded by other excellent teammates. His average (23.68) and strike rate (50.9) are excellent. Both his strike rate and AARP (6.66) are in the top-20 bowlers of all-time for those considered for the Hall. As you might expect, the total counting stats aren’t quite as impressive: 249 wickets, with two 10wm and thirteen 5wi. These are excellent figures, but not top-20 material. Of course, there’s only 20 wickets to go around in each Test, and when you’re bowling alongside Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall et al, there’s not a lot of opportunity to take big bags of wickets. Strike quickly, or they’re all gone.

And Michael Holding wasn’t just a tremendous bowler. After his playing days were over, he became a regular fixture in the commentary box in both England and Australia. Holding is (was, I suppose,  if he has decided to put down the microphone for good) an excellent commentator. In my view, he was as good a commentator (or better) than he was a player. He was honest in his appraisal of players past and present, and rarely, if ever, resorted to stories of his playing days. Modern commentators could learn well the lesson of Holding and Benaud — to focus the conversation and commentary on the game at hand, rather than the commentator’s exploits from their playing days ten years earlier.

The verdict

Michael Holding has given so much to the game of cricket. As a player, he was a part of one of, if not the greatest, fast-bowling attacks of all-time. The West Indian side of that era did much more than just win cricket games — they literally brought nations together and uplifted a people in a time of economic hardship and political transition. Michael Holding and the West Indian team of the 1970s and 1980s became heroes in their homelands. If you haven’t watched the Fire in Babylon documentary, or read the book, I thoroughly recommend that you do so. It’s must-read/must-watch for the cricketing education of every student of the game.

Holding was very much in the right place at the right time. He had the right captain, he was in the right era for fast bowlers to be nurtured and developed in West Indies cricket, and he played with the best fast-bowling cohort the world has ever seen. And in some ways you could argue that hurts his statistical case for the Hall — I’ve no doubt he could have developed an even greater statistical record shouldering more of the load for his country. He and his peers formed a relentless pace bowling barrage, but imagine the impact that Holding would have had with a little more responsibility, and the ball in his hands a little more often.

Off the field, his voice became part of our living room cricket-watching experience in Australia and England for the best part of thirty years. Listening to Michael Holding commentate, I would often be transfixed by the mellifluous sound of his voice and enchanted by his storytelling. Without referring to ‘back in my day’, he was able to provide a context for the listener that was grounded in his experience as one of the premier fast bowlers the cricketing world has ever seen. Now that he has retired, his will be a voice that is hard to replace.

Finally, Holding’s forthright views on the Black Lives Matter movement in recent times perfectly articulated the struggle for equality and the need for change, both in wider society, and the role that cricket, cricketers and sportspeople in general could play in striving for equality. His moving speech during the English summer of 2020 perfectly summed up the injustices of the past, the emotion of the moment and the call to action needed to change society going forward. The cricketing world is indebted to players like Holding, who are not afraid to speak up or speak out and remain instigators for action and change.

In one word

Whisper

Notes

[1] Honourable mentions:

• NBA basketballer Charles Barkley (The Round Mound of Rebound). Actually, there are plenty from the NBA: throw Gary ‘The Glove’ Payton (and his son, Gary ‘The Mitten’ Payton II), Karl ‘The Mailman’ Malone, Julius Erving (Dr. J), Darryl Dawkins (Chocolate Thunder), Dominique Wilkins (The Human Highlight Reel) and Shaquille O’Neal (who had many, but ‘The Big Aristotle’ is my personal favourite) in there as well

• While we’re in America, NFL player, OJ ‘The Juice’ Simpson, and baseballer ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson

• Irish rugby player Keith Wood (The Raging Potato — check out a picture of him)

• Cricketers Steve ‘Tugga’ Waugh, and his brother Mark ‘Afghan’ (the forgotten) Waugh

• English footballer ‘One Size’ Fitz Hall

• ‘Waltzing’ Matt Hilder

• and for pure comedic value Australian rugby league player Phil ‘Whatapacketa’ Sigsworth.

Finally, one that never stuck. Brett Lee, when first playing for the Australian limited-overs side, batted behind his brother Shane Lee, followed by Ian Harvey. Sadly, ‘Oswald’ never stuck as a nickname, and we were subjected to a career of the younger Lee being called the entirely unimaginative ‘Binga’. A wasted opportunity if ever I saw one. The lack of inventive and obscure nicknames is a key indicator in the decline of Australian cricket in the post-Waugh era. (see what I did there?)

[2] I have done a little light reading on West Indian cricket over the past year. I don’t recall reading any accounts anywhere of a West Indian player saying that they set out to deliberately injure a batter.

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo

career peak