Michael Holding

Michael Anthony Holding (born 16 February 1954) is a Jamaican former cricketer and commentator who played for the West Indies cricket team.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest pace bowlers in cricket history, he was nicknamed "Whispering Death" due to his silent, light-footed run up to the bowling crease.

Michael Holding was born on 16 February 1954, the youngest of four children to Ralph and Enid Holding who lived in Half Way Tree, Kingston.

In late 1975 the West Indies team embarked on a six-Test tour of Australia.

Earlier that year the West Indies had defeated Australia in the final of the inaugural World Cup, and the teams were considered to be the best of their day.

Fast bowler Bernard Julien was out of form and his place in the team was given to debutant Michael Holding who opened the bowling with Andy Roberts.

He picked up a groin strain in the second Test and bowled as fast as 97 mph, quicker than Jeff Thomson, Australia's fastest bowler.

According to Wisden in his debut series, Holding "had shown himself to be Roberts' natural opening partner and indeed was timed to be faster than Jeff Thomson, Dennis Lillee and Andy Roberts, and considered that when West Indies captain Clive Lloyd chose to give Julien the new ball rather than Holding it was a mistake that cost the West Indies the match. Australia won the series 5–1, and though Holding's 10 wickets in 5 matches cost on average more than 60 runs each, Wisden believed that he had performed well enough to establish himself in the side and had the potential to bowl faster still.

India visited the West Indies in March for a four-Test series.

The defeat by Australia had left Andy Roberts exhausted, so he was rested for the matches against India and Holding took over as leader of the West Indies bowling attack.

He finished as his team's leading wicket taker (second in the series to Indian leg spinner B. S. Chandrasekhar) with 19 wickets at less than 20 runs each and helped his team to a 2–1 victory.

Early in his Test career, in 1976, Holding broke the record for best bowling figures in a Test match by a West Indies bowler, 14 wickets for 149 runs (14/149).

The record still stands.

During his first-class cricket career, Holding played for Jamaica, Canterbury, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and Tasmania.

In September 2021, Holding announced his retirement from being a commentator.

The West Indies toured England in 1976, and though Holding was largely unknown in the country, the British press noted his performance in Australia and there was a sense of anticipation about his bowling.

An early psychological blow was landed by the West Indies in a warm up match against the M.C.C. when Holding struck Dennis Amiss on the head, leaving a wound that needed stitches.

Amiss was a veteran player and was likely to open for England in the forthcoming Tests and seeing him struggle against Holding's pace was a warning of things to come.

In the lead up to the series, the South African-born England captain Tony Greig was very confident of his team's chances, saying in an interview "I like to think people are building these West Indians up, because I'm not really sure they're as good as everyone thinks. You must remember, that the West Indians, these guys, if they get on top they are magnificent cricketers. But if they're down, they grovel, and I intend, with the help of Closey (Brian Close) and a few others, to make them grovel."

His comments outraged the West Indians, and to many the use of the term "grovel" in particular was highly offensive, as it "smacked of racism and apartheid".

The West Indies fast bowling attack consisted of Roberts, Holding, Wayne Daniel, and Vanburn Holder.

The first three used the bouncer liberally (Wisden notes that Holding in particular bowled "exceptionally fast"), and England's experienced John Edrich and Brian Close suffered in particular, both being struck on the torso many times (Close was already 45 when the series started in June, and Edrich turned 39 during the second Test).

In the first innings of the fifth Test, played at the Oval, Holding took 8 wickets for 92 runs which remained the best bowling figures of his first-class career and were the best bowling figures by a West Indies bowler at the ground.

He took a further 6 wickets in the match to finish with 14/149, which remain the best match figures by a West Indian in a Test match.

The West Indies won the five match series 3–0.

According to an urban myth, during a Test match between the West Indies and England when Holding was to bowl to English player Peter Willey, the BBC radio commentator at the time, Brian Johnston, described the action as "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" (a double entendre, as "willy" is British English slang for a penis).

However Wisden states that there is no record of Johnston or anyone else actually saying this (although a colleague of Johnston's, Henry Blofeld, has said he recalls the incident occurring during a Test match at The Oval in 1976.) In a limited-overs international between England and West Indies on 26 August 1976 at Scarborough, Michael Holding's return from long-leg deflected off the nearer wicket, breaking the bails, and then scuttled along the pitch to also break the far wicket, with Graham Barlow and Alan Knott, on his only appearance as England's captain, stranded in mid-pitch.

This highly unusual occurrence of both wickets being broken by one throw dumbfounded the umpires, David Constant and Arthur Jepson, who rejected the run-out appeal for unknown reasons.

The West Indies played 26 first-class matches on the tour, winning 18 and losing only two, making them the most successful side ever to tour England.

After the 1976 series against England, Holding enrolled at the University of the West Indies on a scholarship to study Computer Science.

As a profession, cricket did not pay particularly well at the time, even for the stars of the sport, and Holding was preparing himself for employment after his retirement.

A shoulder injury sustained towards the end of the 1976 tour of England prevented Holding from joining the West Indies squad to face Pakistan in March 1977.

Holding was a key member of the West Indies team that won the 1979 Cricket World Cup, and had the most wickets for his team at the tournament.

His bowling action was renowned for being smooth and extremely fast, and he used his height (192 cm) to generate large amounts of bounce and zip off the pitch.

He was part of the fearsome West Indian pace bowling battery, together with Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Wayne Daniel, Malcolm Marshall and Sylvester Clarke, that devastated opposing batting line-ups throughout the world in the late seventies and early eighties.

In an interview in 2020, Holding stated that his mother's family disowned her because her husband's skin was too dark.

The family was passionate about sport, and only a few years after Michael was born his father enrolled him as a member of Melbourne Cricket Club in Kingston.

At the age of three he was diagnosed with asthma, but by his early teenage years this had passed and he no longer needed an inhaler.

He led an active life, playing sport in the scrubland and wooded areas near his home.

Though his family would often watch the cricket at Sabina Park, Holding preferred to play rather than watch.