Along the path of his chosen career, Jason Holder has found himself buffeted from all sides by the winds of the cricketing times. This is the boy who grew up dearly wanting to represent West Indies but has ended up turning down a central contract, jeopardising his chances of wearing the Maroon Cap.
He is the leader who spent a widely lauded five years as the captain at a desperately difficult time for West Indies cricket, who now looks back and wonders whether taking on the captaincy was the right thing to do. He is the cricketer who cherishes playing Test matches above all, but finds it a less and less viable career option every year. Such is the life of a West Indies cricketer in the modern game.
At the age of 32 Holder will play his third Test series in England, which begins at Lord’s on Wednesday, but as a rank-and-file player rather than captain for the first time. Despite missing the T20 World Cup with injury, he also comes into the three-match series feeling better prepared than he had done for his more recent Test assignments — given the preponderance of T20 cricket in his schedule these days — after an early season stint with Worcestershire in the County Championship.
“This series was the main reason for wanting to play four-day cricket,” Holder says. “My last couple of Test series I hadn’t had much four-day stuff leading up to it, so I played without much workload behind [me] and it’s been difficult to get into.
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“We’ve only been playing two-match series so your body is shocked in the first Test and the second is pretty much over by the time you’re ready to go again. Quick transitions from T20 back into Test cricket are not ideal. I wanted to give myself the best chance and I think I picked up a few things from playing in England.”
The Test at Lord’s this week will be Holder’s first for almost exactly a year. But in that time he has only actually missed two Tests, on West Indies’ tour to Australia in January, which included the memorable eight-run victory in Brisbane. Holder made himself unavailable for that trip, having turned down a central contract the previous month and focusing on freelance T20 commitments instead. In the year since his most recent Test he has represented teams such as Khulna Tigers (Bangladesh Premier League), Dubai Capitals (ILT20) and Samp Army (Abu Dhabi T10), as well as his native Barbados in the Caribbean Premier League.
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“My aspirations are to play every single Test match I can play,” he says. “But it’s just hoping that the schedules align so I can possibly do that. At this stage of my career I’m moving into that old boy phase and basically trying to maximise earnings. I’m still trying to give West Indies cricket everything I can, but trying to give myself the best chance to earn as much as I possibly can in the years I’ve got left.
“Personally, I’ve given up a lot of financial opportunity earlier in my career to prioritise West Indies cricket. Now I’m not captain and I’m getting older, I think it’s only fair for me to look from a more personal standpoint.”
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He was far from the first to turn down a contract with West Indies. Where Chris Gayle and other T20 trailblazers led, now Holder and others, such as Nicholas Pooran and Kyle Mayers, have followed. Trent Boult, the New Zealand pace bowler, has done the same, underlining the international game’s most uncomfortable reality: that nations such as West Indies and New Zealand are struggling to compete financially with many T20 leagues around the world.
“It was a tough decision for me,” Holder, the fast-bowling all-rounder, says. “We had lots of negotiations, back and forth, and from the initial discussions it looked quite likely that I would sign a central contract. Then it took three to four months and within that time so many things changed and I ended up not signing.
“Frankly, I was disappointed not to be centrally contracted, but it was the best decision at the time based on what was presented to me.
“I’m not against signing a central contract, but it has to make sense for me personally. I’m still 100 per cent committed to West Indies cricket, that’s something to be clear about. But it’s just unfortunate how things unfolded.”
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The itinerant existence Holder now leads brought him to the chilly, damp surroundings of Worcester for a six-week spell at the beginning of the season. He did not actually play in Worcester itself as New Road had been flooded, so he spent April trying to keep warm in away matches at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge and home matches at Kidderminster, before scoring an unbeaten 123 from 110 balls in his final game at Canterbury — always wrapped up to insulate against decidedly un-Caribbean conditions, with handwarmers in his pockets.
“I generally had four layers,” he says. “A vest, my jersey, short-sleeved woolly, long-sleeved woolly. The long-sleeved was the only thing that came off when I bowled. I didn’t wear a woolly hat, though, too much pride for that.
“A good friend of mine says, ‘When you’re cold, think warm’, so that’s what I was trying to do.”
The home games at Kidderminster were the chilliest — “beastly cold,” he says — but he thoroughly enjoyed his time playing championship cricket in the intimate surroundings of an outground, where even in a grim April there were enough spectators to generate more atmosphere than he had felt at Test grounds such as Edgbaston and Trent Bridge.
Four-day games in the Caribbean are now sparsely attended, but so are Test matches. “People often ask me how it was during Covid, when we were playing without crowds, and for us it wasn’t too dissimilar to what we’re accustomed to,” Holder says. “Sometimes you play a Test match with hardly anybody in the stands. It’s sad.”
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The Covid series of 2020, with three Tests played behind closed doors, was West Indies’ most recent visit here. Holder won widespread admiration for his captaincy, not only for bowling his side to victory in the first Test at the Ageas Bowl, before England won both Tests at Old Trafford, but for taking a lead with Black Lives Matter protests and simply for travelling at a time when a cancelled series could have spelled financial disaster for English cricket.
His time in charge was rarely straightforward. There is always a fair amount of politics that goes with uniting a group of players from so many different Caribbean countries, but Holder first took charge, aged 23, at a time when the focus of some senior players like Gayle and Marlon Samuels was being diverted by T20 leagues. Holder gave the job his best for five years before being replaced as Test captain by Kraigg Brathwaite, his fellow Bajan.
“Had I known back then what I know now, I maybe wouldn’t have taken the captaincy at that age,” he says. “It was a shock to me, I wasn’t aware of all it was. But it’s made me into the cricketer and the man I am today. It’s made me stronger, it’s opened my eyes. I can’t thank West Indies cricket enough for believing in me at that stage. It’s something I’ll always cherish.”
Would he captain again, should the opportunity arise? “I wouldn’t rule it out, but it’s not high on my agenda,” he says. “I’ve given heaps. It’s been a long road.”
Holder is blessed with vision that extends well beyond the boundary and his concerns now are for the wider game. Playing for a cash-strapped team at such a time of flux in the international game has made him acutely aware of the economics that have made Test matches such an endangered species in certain parts of the world. Since that Covid tour four years ago West Indies have played 27 Tests; England have played 46.
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“The world should be very worried about where Test cricket is going,” Holder, who has played 64 Tests, says. “From our standpoint, we don’t make money from any series apart from England or India. Otherwise, we lose a significant amount of money every time we host Test matches. We lose a significant amount when we tour. All the television revenue is kept by the host board.
“I’ve proposed a model where the opposing team gets a percentage of that series. If we get, say, ten per cent of what the ECB generate for a series here, it would probably cover our expenses. But we have to bank on England or India coming to the Caribbean. That way we can generate some money to pay off a few bills, write off some debt.
“The West Indies board is doing an outstanding job in the circumstances, but it’s never enough to sustain us. South Africa took a stance when they prioritised the SA20 over the Test series in New Zealand and that shows where cricket is going. And it will continue to happen unless we find a different way to generate income for the boards to stay alive.”
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Does he feel that the authorities have listened to his suggestions? “They definitely hear but who knows if they listen,” he says. “The ICC, every year they’re chucking in new tournaments, making millions of dollars, but the current model isn’t sustaining international cricket.
“We can’t stay stuck in the stone ages. You’re breaking your body in a Test match three to four times as much as you would playing T20, for way less money. Crazy people like me continue to do it, because I love it. It was always my dream to play Test cricket for West Indies. There’s no T20 league in the world that competes with international cricket. But we’ve only got short careers and a lot of young players are prioritising T20 cricket now. I find that sad because, at the end of the day, Test cricket is real cricket.”
Holder is torn in different directions, desperate for West Indies and Test cricket to thrive, but confronted with the financial realities of increasingly powerful T20 leagues, rather than the age-old simplicity of pursuing a career in international cricket. Such is the lot of a West Indies cricketer, and many more besides, in the increasingly fractured modern game.
