Holding says time for Walsh to go - Amber light for Lara (4 Jan 1998)

Sunday, January 4, 1998

Holding says time for Walsh to go - Amber light for Lara

Trinidad Express

FORMER West Indies pacer Michael Holding is convinced that the time has come for Courtney Walsh to be replaced as captain of the regional team. But he says that Brian Lara is not now a suitable candidate for the position and Walsh should therefore be retained as skipper for the forthcoming England tour.

Writing in the Sunday Times, the newspaper for which he will cover the January 16 to April 8 tour, Holding wrote that the captaincy issue is "not an easy one".

The reason, he says, is that the 35-year-old incumbent "cannot lead a long-term revival. I doubt whether he will continue playing international cricket after the end of the England tour." Elaborating, Holding adds this dismissive paragraph about Lara, whose elevation to the leadership of the team many now see as likely to arrest the current slide.

" Were there any suitable candidate other than Brian Lara, I would advocate that a new man be appointed now. "On the field, I have no argument with Lara-he is clearly a better captain than Walsh. But he has followed his own agenda beyond the boundary and that could set the wrong example."

"The board should turn to him," he concludes, "only if he is prepared to devote 100% of his attention to the team by cutting out some of his other interests."

The Jamaican quickie who retired from the Test arena in 1987 with 249 wickets to his credit, argues that cricket in the region has gone downhill over the past couple of years with the authorities "looking in the wrong direction for answers" to the problems.

Saying that the West Indies Cricket Board's solution of replacing managers, coaches and captains, has not brought any improvement, he suggests that eyes should turn in the direction of new blood. " Although we have been losing Tests for a number of years, the selectors have basically stood by the same group of players. It is time to look beyond the surface."

He added that official reports compiled by team officials have been ignored and need to be taken more seriously. "Coaches, managers and captains," he declares, "have been used as scapegoats".

He laments the attitude, the lack of commitment he saw displayed by some of the players in Pakistan.

"They didn't seem to understand what it means to the people of the West Indies to have a team that is playing proper cricket," writes Holding, "and they were not prepared to put in the effort." So what is to be done? According to Holding, wholesale changes are necessary but they have to be "phased in".

"The selectors must take a good look at the squad which toured Pakistan. They could take five or six out, keeping the nucleus to provide experience while drafting in youngsters in the right positions," he recommends.

Going further, he says that Sherwin Campbell, Lara, Carl Hooper and Shivnarine Chanderpaul should be retained.

"But they must start performing," he stresses. "If Lara, Hooper and Chanderpaul concentrate on time at the crease, rather than going for big shots, only two more batsmen will be needed.

"If they continue to give their wickets away, their positions will have to be looked at."

Looking at the options available to the selectors, he says there is a case for recalling Jimmy Adams, "a proven player with a Test average of more than 50" and identifies "Sylvester Joseph or Leon Garrick as candidates for the spare batting place".

Turning to the bowling, "Whispering Death" backs Curtly Ambrose for one more series "provided he recovers from the injury that forced him to miss the Sharjah tournament". He picks Mervyn Dillon, recently fingered as a potential destroyer by Holding's fast bowling contemporary Colin Croft, as the favourite to complete a quartet of quickies along with Walsh and Franklyn Rose.

But he adds that genuine speedster Reon King, the Guyanese youngster who toured South Africa, and Nixon McLean should keep the pressure on for the fast bowling places.

Holding does not preclude the possibility of a spinner claiming a place. But, he says, they need to do a lot of work. Examining young leg-spinner Rawl Lewis's performance in Pakistan, Holding concedes that he "showed he has some ability (...) but the number of no-balls he delivered was ridiculous".

And he ends with a stinging though only implied criticism of the administration: "Here was another young West Indian," he writes, "arriving at the highest level with obvious basic problems that should have been ironed out before he got that far".

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)