ECB wouldn’t have done this to India: Holding
The former West Indies great was in complete agreement with England great Michael Atherton.
There is little doubt that former West Indies pacer Michael Holding was one of the greats in his generation. He was part of a West Indies pace unit which is considered by many as perhaps the best attack in the world. Holding shared the dressing room with Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Andy Roberts and was capable of instilling fear in the opposition just by sheer reputation that he had of accurate pace bowling.
Holding has now picked 4 best fast bowlers from across generations. His list includes his teammates Malcolm Marshall and Andy Robers along with Australia’s Dennis Lillee and modern-day great Dale Steyn.
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“Lillee had it all: rhythm, aggression control. He was extremely fast when he started, but he had to completely reshape his action after a back injury and find different ways to get hitters out after losing a lot of rhythm,” Holding said in a Sky Sports podcast.
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“When you see that someone can adapt in that way, you have to rate him highly, as many players are not as effective when they miss a beat,” he added.
“Malcolm started with a good rhythm, but as time went on he learned a lot about fast bowling. He could evaluate opposition hitters so quickly and so easily. In those days you didn’t have many tapes or computers, it was all in his head He understood how to deal with hitters,” he said.
“Andy was someone I learned a lot from. He hardly ever spoke, he used to walk around the field with a sullen face and people thought he looked aggressive and must be a miserable guy. But that wasn’t Andy.”
“He was my roommate for most of my career and we used to talk about cricket almost every night. A lot of times, we would order food, we would stay in our room and talk about cricket. You would never believe how much this guy knows,” he further said.
“I have experience with those three guys, but just watching, you can’t go Dale Steyn outside of photography. He has been one of the great fast bowlers in an era. You’d pay to see it,” he concluded.
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