Michael Holding prefers calling a spade a spade. This time around, the former West Indies fast bowler, who is a popular TV commentator, has expressed his dislike for T20 cricket and pulled no punches while criticising the format, going to the extent of saying that tournaments played in the 20-over format don’t qualify as cricket.
In an interview with The Indian Express, Holding explained why West Indies might be a force to reckon with in the shortest format but not in Tests. “The T20 tournaments around the world are the bane of the game. When you are a poor country and can’t afford to pay as much as England, Australia, and India, the players will go on to play T20. That’s where West Indies and others are getting hit. Unless you can pay as much as the rest of the big countries, this will happen,” he said.
Highlighting the harsh reality of West Indies cricket, he pointed the finger at cricket administrators of the country, and said, “Many West Indies players are not interested in playing for West Indies. I don’t want to call out names. When you are earning 600,000 or 800,000 dollars for six weeks, what are you going to do? I don’t blame the cricketers. I blame the administrators. They give a lot of lip service to Test cricket but all they are interested in is bringing in money into their cupboards. West Indies will win T20 tournaments which aren’t cricket; they won’t be a force in Test cricket.”
Holding was recently in the news for supporting the suspension of English cricketer Ollie Robinson, who was pulled up by the English and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for making racist tweets eight years ago. Speaking to Sky Sports, he had said, “It was eight, nine years ago. Can the ECB then find out please, if beyond that time, Robinson has kept on behaving like that, saying things like that, tweeting things like that? If he has done something like that nine years ago, and since then he has learnt and he has done nothing like that and he has changed his ways in recent years, then I don't think you should come down too hard on him.”
Among veteran cricketers in India, Bishen Singh Bedi does not hold T20 cricket in high regard. So much so that he once called the Indian Premier League a ‘scam’. “I don't want to say anything about IPL. There's not a bigger scam in India than IPL. Nobody here knows where IPL's money comes and goes,” the former Test captain of India told Aaj Tak back in 2017.
