It may have gone unnoticed to casual observers during the World Cup, but Jason Holder can bat.
This would have been missed by those who turned the TV off as soon as Chris Gayle got out, but anyone who watched the West Indies more closely would have been impressed by the clean hitting ability of the man batting at number 9.
Holder’s scores in his three completed World Cup innings were 56, 57 and 42. Two of these innings were in hopelessly lost causes chasing huge totals and therefore didn’t mean much in the scheme of things. But even in making 56 against South Africa and 42 against NZ, in matches where his combined bowling figures were 1 for 180, Holder looked good. Too good to be batting at number 9.
A few weeks later and it is day 5 in Antigua. It will turn out to be a landmark day for more reasons than one but I can’t tell you what date it is. Watching this match from Australia involves setting the recorder for the midnight start time, going to work, avoiding all cricketing and social media sites and cramming in a day’s play each night.
Once this process finishes around 11.30pmm there is a quick read of the UK press then off to bed.
This is the first Test match of a three-Test series between the West Indies and England. First innings century maker Jermaine Blackwood has just played an ugly swipe across the line and is caught behind off Chris Jordan. West Indies are six down and the runs don’t matter. The only thing that matters is time. England only need four wickets in 50 overs and Jimmy Anderson is tied with Sir Ian Botham on 383 Test wickets for England.
The champagne is on ice and it seems only a matter of time before England are celebrating a fourth consecutive Test victory, a better current victory streak than South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India or Pakistan. Blackwood’s dismissal has opened up an end and now they are into the tail. The tail of an opposition that the incoming ECB chairman Colin Graves described as mediocre.
After a farcical World Cup campaign which has already cost managing director Paul Downton his job, the ECB suits have made it clear that failure to win the series is not an option.
Striding out at number 8 for the West Indies is Jason Holder. The captain in waiting joins the current captain Denesh Ramdin. It is Ramdin’s decision at the toss that has put them in this position. With England 3 for 45 at lunch on day one it didn’t look like an awful decision, but Ian Bell, Joe Root and Ben Stokes spent the remainder of day one flattening both the West Indies bowlers and Kevin Pietersen’s hopes of an unlikely recall. Maybe Ramdin has a short memory. He was in the team when his predecessor Darren Sammy invited New Zealand to bat at the start of a series in Dunedin at the end of 2013. After the Black Caps piled on 600 but the Otago rain and 218 from Darren Bravo saved West Indies that time.
The series was eventually lost however, and Sammy was finished as a Test player.
Back to Antigua and Holder looks assured as he and Ramdin combine for a century partnership. On this very ground just over twelve months ago Ramdin made his maiden one day hundred against England. Precious little is happening for the bowlers and Stokes looks like he wants to punch another locker.
Eventually, England finally get a break when Ramdin nicks Anderson to Alastair Cook at first slip – Jimmy has his record at last. 384 wickets in 100 Tests, and caught Cook bowled Anderson appears on a Test scorecard for the 26th time.
Cook’s last two years have been a study in mediocrity but one thing he does do well is catch. In 2013 and 2014 combined only New Zealand’s Ross Taylor pouched more Test catches than Cook.
Still 20 overs to go and Kemar Roach joins Holder. Surely 385 can’t be far away for Anderson. Surely Holder will shield Roach from the strike and forget about scoring. That would be the sensible approach with just Jerome Taylor (who remarkably has a Test hundred but whose batting has declined in a similar manner to Stuart Broad) and Suliemann Benn to come.
Holder responds to the pressure by trusting Roach, just like Steve Waugh used to do when batting with the Australian tail. He takes three off the first ball of an over more than once. Roach is exposed yet survives and only looks in trouble when an edge drops a metre in front of Cook and goes for four.
Part time spinner Joe Root has been England’s best player in this match and looks their most dangerous bowler. James Tredwell bowled well in the first innings but is tiring, Broad lacks pace and confidence and Stokes or Jordan won’t get it done either.
Given the perilous state of the game, most batsmen in Holder’s position might have ended up 55 not out at the close. The same AB De Villiers who has been unstoppable in 2015 scored 33 from 220 balls in the process of saving the Adelaide Test of 2012.
But Holder takes his scoring opportunities as they arise and in the second last over of the match, with defeat now averted, he pumps Tredwell over long off for his 15th four. England are now feeling mediocre, but Holder’s performance has been anything but.
If there is to be a better Test hundred scored in 2015 it will be something special. Perhaps the last word should go to retired Windies fast bowler Ian Bishop, who described Holder on commentary as an “all rounder under construction”.
It would appear that a solid foundation has just been laid.
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