You're the MAN, Michael Holding!

[Texy]

Michael holding a grudge?

[punjabi_khota]

i think michael holding is right in some prospective.We have really overhyped t20 format.It is not that popular as we think.t20 worldup was prove of that.70% of matches were played i empty stadium.IPL is only tournament which has been successfully hold.otherwise t20 is just a rubbish form of cricket.Icc should leave t20 cricket for club cricket only.

are you saying there would have been more people in the stadium to view ODI or tests ?

[The Outsider]

are you saying there would have been more people in the stadium to view ODI or tests ?

I am sure Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's concert tickets sell for a fraction of the price of Himesh Reshammayia's :winky:

[Bublu Bhuyan]

I think this assessment about Tests and ODIs fading in India because of fans not going to the stadiums to watch them is utter rubbish! Take a deep breath and ask yourself - Which format is convenient enough to make you go and watch it in the stadium? It's T20 that comes to mind instantly. Not because it's better, but because it's simply more convenient. As much as I despise this garbage of a format, given a chance to watch International cricket on a very regular basis in stadiums, I'd pick T20 over the other two formats. And that's simply because it's less hassle. You don't have to sit in the sun like you have to in a day's play of a Test or ODI match, you don't have to remain inside the stadium for more than 3/3.5 hours unlike in the other two formats where you have to remain inside for close to 9 hours to watch the full match/day's play. Mind you, I'd pick T20 only if I get the option watch International cricket in stadiums more than 5 times a year. In my city, International cricket comes barely once a year, and I'd pick ODIs in a heartbeat under such circumstances. Second pick would be ODI cricket, since it's exciting to watch compared to Tests, and you don't have to sit for full 5 days to watch the whole match. Sure, in India you will have to sit in the hot sun for the whole day, but it's still worth it to go and watch it in the stadium. Now make no mistake, I started watching cricket since 1996 and Test cricket has been my first love since 1998. But in India I'd never go to watch a day's play of a Test match in the stadium. I'd rather watch it at the comfort of my home at television, where I can relax and watch the whole day's play with accurate and conclusive replays, take breaks in lunch intervals, tea breaks and between a couple of overs or two, have snacks in regular intervals, etc. I'd never opt to bake myself in the hot sun to watch a day's play of a Test in India because watching it in the television is worth way more, simple as that. The most important thing for me is not whether people in India prefer to go to the stadiums to watch Test cricket or not, but whether the television broadcast of Test cricket attracts viewers or not. I'm sure there are millions of fans like me who have immense love for Test cricket, but would opt to watch it at the comfort of their home rather than going through the hassles to watch it in the stadium.

[yoda]

The most important thing for me is not whether people in India prefer to go to the stadiums to watch Test cricket or not, but whether the television broadcast of Test cricket attracts viewers or not. I'm sure there are millions of fans like me who have immense love for Test cricket, but would opt to watch it at the comfort of their home rather than going through the hassles to watch it in the stadium.

You think there are millions of fans who have the time to watch a full day's test cricket let alone all 5 days? I did during my middle/high school summer holidays and on weekends. But can you imagine someone working having the time even on weekends to watch a full day's test cricket even in the comfort of their own home?

[Bublu Bhuyan]

You think there are millions of fans who have the time to watch a full day's test cricket let alone all 5 days? I did during my middle/high school summer holidays and on weekends. But can you imagine someone working having the time even on weekends to watch a full day's test cricket even in the comfort of their own home?

That's a separate issue - not having the time to watch. My opinion was about fans who does have the time to watch Test matches.

[saneindian]

India havent played WI in tests since 2006. In that time you have found time for 2 test series with Sri Lanka' date=' lets not even get started on the ODI's.[/quote'] During the same period, WI have played Eng in 3 series. BTW next year we will play WI twice, 4 tests in WI and then 3 in India.

[Bublu Bhuyan]

During the same period, WI have played Eng in 3 series. BTW next year we will play WI twice, 4 tests in WI and then 3 in India.

Gosh, that's freaking amazing! Thanks a lot for the info.

[diegovegaz]

mazaa aa gaya yeh sunke :bhangra::bhangra:

[King Tendulkar]

Holding telling it how it is. Stating the brutal truth which many many cricket followers around the world think.

[IKnowU]

Holding telling it how it is. Stating the brutal truth which many many cricket followers around the world think.

So? You think pollard will go home and cry to his mommy about what Holding said. Hell take it with a pinch of salt and rake in the money as long as hes decent at t20/20.

[Guest Hiten.]

I am sure Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's concert tickets sell for a fraction of the price of Himesh Reshammayia's :winky:

You're still stuck on that analogy ? Kuch naya socho mamu :cantstop:

[Three'sACrowd]

He's entitled to his opinion about 20:20. He was a great player and his views on the format deserve consideration; heck I share them in part. But in publicly targeting by name a young cricketer trying to make his way in the game, someone who is vulnerable precisely because he is young and starting out, Holding has displayed some lack of class. Not expected from him, and not cricket.

[achilles]

Isn't this the same guy who was in the "Allen Stanford T20" committee as the CEO or something. Hypocrite :hehe: But, Love you, Mike. Bambi's pwned again :bow:

[zen]

That CNN's discussion with Holding was entertaining. The Anchor wasn't that bad looking too :P I can see his point though that Test cricket is the ultimate form of the game. As for Ind, I wouldn't mind it if they restrict playing T20 to IPL and T20 WC. And devote more time to tests This is how I would like India to divide its time amongst the formats over a four year period: - Tests: Most of it - ODIs: Play a short 3 game series when they play tests. Key multi-national tourneys, along with the WC - T20s: IPL (which I think is the best T20 tourney in the world atm) and T20 WC

[youngindia]

I think he has it in personally for pollard. ?

no you are clueless about cricket.pollard has very shaky basics but has striking ability and a few other gifts. he is a player with narrow set of gifts but nowhere near broad enuf to be a full fledged batsman or bowler. afridi you can say atleast makes it up with some decent spin bowling. but then again he is a dubious bowler as well.so he can attract more criticism.

[Karan114]

Twenty20 will kill Test cricket within 20 years, says West Indian great Michael Holding By Jim White What a great doctor Michael Holding would have made. He could deliver the most terminal of diagnoses and, thanks to the soothing tenor of his voice – the aural equivalent of being gently lowered into a warm bath – the patient would hardly notice the pain and would leave the surgery smiling inwardly. Indeed, his mellifluous baritone, with its hint of palm trees and cricket being played out on sun-dappled beaches as the Caribbean laps the bowler's ankles, could announce the end of the world and make it sound like the most delightful prospect. Which is just as well, as the news Holding wishes to proclaim when we meet in a hotel near Lord's just before the start of the summer's Test matches is hardly suffused with optimism. "I'm happy I'm on the way out and not on the way in," he says. "I fear for the future of cricket. Cricket has given me my life I don't want to see it destroyed. But that is what is happening." In such a kindly rumble of a tone is this thought communicated that it takes a moment to appreciate its apocalyptic content. But apocalypse is what the great West Indies fast bowler turned great television commentator sees ahead for the game he once graced. "Test cricket is cricket," he continues. "Simple. Twenty20 is entertainment. Fine, we all need entertainment in our lives. But the problem is Twenty20 is taking over." Sure, but why should that signal the end of Test cricket? Cannot the two live in harmony, the one promoting the other? "You see, Hollywood didn't just go all cartoons," he says. "I have never seen a cartoon character being nominated for an Oscar. You could argue there is room for all forms, for cartoon and proper drama, but you have to manage them properly. My fear is that as soon as they sniffed the money that comes with Twenty20, the administrators lost sight of anything beyond the end of their nose. "My view is that in 20 years time, Test cricket will not exist and all we will be left with is 20 overs. Sure, there are some people who only want to eat McDonald's. But there are many people like me who want to go to a fine dining restaurant every now and again. We don't want to be living on snacks." Unlike the newly elected Prime Minister, who was keen to be seen celebrating victory on the steps of No 10 with "Colin Wood" and his England team, it comes as no surprise to learn that Holding was not an enthusiastic consumer of the recent Twenty20 World Cup, even if his employers at Sky promoted it as the greatest moment in British sport since 1966. "I didn't watch a single ball," he says. "I cannot support it. Because Twenty20 will destroy the game I love. Where are the youngsters going to come from to play Test cricket? They can't develop into Test players if they play Twenty20. If I'm a young man growing up today and you are going to pay me $800,000 for six weeks work, I am gone. I'm certainly not going to spend time in the nets busting a gut improving my technique to play Test cricket. "And once there are Twenty20 leagues in South Africa, England and Australia like the one in India, then a player will spend his whole time flitting from one to the other, with no time for Tests. And who can blame him?" Even as he speaks, however, you can almost hear his fellow Sky commentator David Lloyd – who generally plays Tigger to Holding's Eeyore – telling him to loosen up and enjoy the spectacle of six hits and comedy run outs. And surely Lloyd would have a point: if nothing else, Twenty20 should be applauded for the way it has brought so much money and attention to cricket at a time when it was in urgent need of both. "Well, Bumble is that sort of person," says Holding, pronouncing his colleague's nickname as if it rhymes with dumb-bell. "Bumble loves fun and frolic. I'm sure if you spoke to Bumble privately he'd say Test cricket is the real thing. But I'll tell you what I have discovered about a lot of people in the commentary box is they love Twenty20 because it's three hours and they're off to the pub. They're not interested in the game. Personally, I look at cricket as something that made me what I am. And I want to protect it." Cricket, Holding says, is what delivered him a life he could never have experienced otherwise. As a young man growing up in Jamaica, he discovered he was a natural at slinging the ball down the pitch fast. Not because he was powerfully built – "look at me," he says pointing to his still slim frame, "I'm not a big man" – but because he was in possession of the most aesthetically perfect action, preceded by a run-up so quick there was a persistent rumour throughout his career that he could have been an Olympic sprinter. "Not true," he says. "I couldn't even get close to the track team at school. Those guys left me trailing, I was eating dust." Still, he looked quick enough to any batsman unfortunate to face him. That's if they saw him coming. Arriving unheard at the crease at the end of a marathon run-up, his delivery was all the more explosive for its lack of accompanying bluster. Never has there been a more evocative nickname in cricket than his: Whispering Death. Not that he accepts the implication within it that, as part of his brief, he enjoyed inflicting pain. "I hated physically hurting a batsman," he says, which will come as news to Brian Close and many others bruised by his rapid dispatch of a ball into their ribcage. "I remember once hitting Derek Randall in his face playing for Tasmania against England. I refused to bowl again. I gave the captain the ball and said: 'I'm not interested'. I said: 'This is not a great pitch to be playing this sort of cricket'. The people in Tasmania were upset, they were happy to see me hit an Englishman. There was blood on the pitch; ''hit him again' they said. I said: 'that's not what I'm here for'." Such integrity has always been at the heart of Holding's approach: do the right thing, do it properly. He was, for instance, the first man in the Caribbean to call foul on Sir Allen Stanford's intervention in West Indies cricket. Not that many in the dressing room or beyond were aware of his opinions when he played. "I didn't talk a lot," he says of those days. "That's why I never thought I would end up being a commentator. I was a very shy person. It took me many years to even talk to the opposition. When I first started to play, we'd visit each other's dressing room, but I'd sit in the corner, listening to the senior guys talking. I'd say nothing." Which, presumably, only enhanced his reputation as the silent assassin. "Perhaps it did," he says. "But it was not deliberate. There was no calculation: if I look mean and don't talk to them they will be frightened of me. I didn't think that. It was my personality to be quiet." That all changed in 1990, when – despite the fact that, unlike other cricketers-turned commentator, he had never harboured any journalistic ambitions – he became involved in the coverage of West Indian cricket when it was first televised in the Caribbean. He soon discovered his vocal delivery was as compelling as his cricketing one. And by 1998, he was invited to join Sky's commentary team. In that time he has seen many extraordinary innovations – Hawkeye, third umpires, Ian Botham's knighthood – but the thing that worries him most is Twenty20. "As soon as cricket sees money it loses its moral compass," he says. "When Stanford arrived at Lord's in his helicopter, everyone was dazzled, they swooned. The thing is, you can't learn the basic technique you need for Test cricket from playing Twenty20. Sure, someone like [sachin] Tendulkar can play Twenty20, because he played Tests first. That's different." But what about the many innovations that have seeped from the foreshortened version of the game into Tests. Hasn't Test cricket improved because of it? "Yes, a lot of things from 50-over cricket have helped Test cricket, the athleticism, the stroke play, pursuit of a target. But if you notice, Test cricketers went into 50 overs and brought things back. You cannot name me one cricketer who started initially as a 50-over specialist who went into Test cricket and made it. You have a lot of outstanding 50-over cricketers who have never ever been able to translate their technique to test. Michael Bevan, outstanding at 50, couldn't survive. Ravi Bopara, another. If they struggle from 50 to Test, it will be much more from 20 to Test. And the only thing youngsters will soon play is 20. As soon as Twenty20 becomes the dominant form – and I'd argue it already is – no one coming through will learn the proper techniques required for Tests. They are gone the way of the dodo." So what will he do if that happens? "I am naturally an optimistic person. But about cricket, the direction I see it going in general, and West Indies cricket in particular, I'm not optimistic at all," he says. "My contract with Sky runs till 2012. If the direction runs as it is, I'll be happy to find something else to do other than cricket after that. For me, it will be over." And the odd thing is, the way he says it, he makes even such a desperate prospect sound just fine. Quick questions If not cricket? I love racing. I live in Newmarket and I’m on the gallops every morning, watching. I’ve tried my hand at owning and at training. Never at being a jockey, though. Not the right build. Worst thing about living in England? The cold. I don’t like cold. In 1981, I played Lancashire League and my first game of the season was called off because of snow. Never happened in Jamaica. Favourite opponent? We always wanted to beat England. Always. Because it was easier to beat England than Australia or Pakistan, it didn’t matter. It was the colonial history. Yes, we wanted to beat the Aussies, because of their competitive nature, but when you beat England, it was party time. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/twenty20/7790638/Twenty20-will-kill-Test-cricket-within-20-years-says-West-Indian-great-Michael-Holding.html

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Bublu Bhuyan]

Before that, it's the responsibility for us fans to kill this disease (T20) in these 20 years time.

[asterix]

T20 is here to stay, like it or not. It suits people's lives. People can enjoy cricket in the evening after a hard days work and not everybody can take leave or watch cricket while at work. People have occupation and will love to watch an entertaining cricket match once they comeback home after work and settle down to watch telly or go to the stadium as a family evening out. So like it or not, T20 is not going anywhere. Holding, you can go and cry a river and sulk in your Jamaican retreat..Instead of finding fault in T20 concentrate on doing something for West Indies cricket, slam the WICB for the way they treat their players and if possible, be a man and help in governing West Indies cricket instead of bitiching about T20 and young cricket players. You might have lot's of time to follow Test cricket, many people don't have that luxury. So, don't try to be selfish and think of serving West Indies cricket and stop worrying about BCCI, IPL, T20, Stanford etc. Test cricket is going strong and will always be there. Don't worry about it.