PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – West Indies legend Lawrence `Yagga’ Rowe believes Jason Holder should have been put in charge of all three formats when he was made Test and one-day captain several years ago, but has now endorsed the change to Kieron Pollard as white-ball skipper.
The 71-year-old, who played 30 Tests between 1972 and 1980 as a member of a star-studded Windies unit, said allowing Holder to also lead the T20 format then would have brought a consistency and continuity in leadership to the various sides.
“I tend to feel that a number of players who play in the Test match format can also play in the 50-over format and the former captain Jason Holder I feel he should have captained all three formats,” Rowe told i95FM here.
“They have a relatively good man captaining the Twenty20 in Pollard. I was always a fan of Pollard and I think he’s doing a very reasonable job of captaining the Twenty20 team and the one-day format.” He added: “I would’ve rather when he (Holder) had started and they had made him the captain of the Test match side, he was young enough to have been able at that time to captain all three formats of the game.
“I think that would’ve helped us a lot if you had that consistency with that person captaining all three formats of the game. If you notice around the world, people like (Virat) Kohli captains all three formats of the game for India … which I think is good continuity for the players as well.”
Holder, then age 23, replaced seasoned all-rounder Dwayne Bravo as one-day captain six years ago and took over from wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin at the helm of the Test side nine months later.
However, Darren Sammy remained in charge of the T20 unit before he was sacked in 2016 in favour of Carlos Brathwaite, five months after overseeing the Caribbean side’s capture of the T20 World Cup. However, Cricket West Indies consolidated the white-ball captaincy last September, with Pollard replacing Holder and Brathwaite at the helm of the one-day and T20 team respectively.
“I have no problems with that,” Rowe said of the Pollard appointment.
“Jason has gone on a little bit too and he’s gotten a bit older too so with the amount of cricket on him, it’s probably a good move to have it the way it is now.”
Despite the changes in leadership, West Indies have continued to struggle in all formats, ranked eighth in Tests, ninth in ODIs and 10th in T20 Internationals.
Jamaican Rowe, who now resides in the United States, said while West Indies had excelled in the shortest format, they had failed to carry that success into the all-important Test arena.
“Today now, the guys just learn to go out and play Twenty20 cricket, to hit the ball out of the park. It’s a good skill,” Rowe pointed out.
“I’ve seen them train now and it’s amazing the things they can do but if you notice you would see we’re suffering a little but in the longer version of the game because they don’t seem to be able to [transition] from one format of the game to the next as well.
“So we have quite a bit of talent but we falter a lot especially in the longer version of the game where people have to think a lot longer and be a lot more patient and things like that.”
