South Africa vs West Indies 2014-15: Is Jason Holder a captain or a stooge?

Sporting bodies have a reputation for an autocratic style of management. Challenging the status quo is often dealt with acrimoniously. Engulfed by megalomania the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has earmarked its latest stooge as Jason Holder, who has replaced Dwayne Bravo as the West Indies’ One-Day International (ODI) captain. Ankur Dhawan sheds light on this act of sheer folly.

One need not have been a prophesier to predict the imminent axing of Dwayne Bravo. Bravo is a heterodox thinker, not one to follow the WICB’s unconditional diktat. He held the WICB on the proverbial gunpoint on the tour of India and dared them to call his bluff.

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While neither party was willing to budge, Bravo obliged the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association’s request and played the fourth One-Day International (ODI) at Dharamsala in an act of good faith, but was compelled to withdraw his players from the tour subsequently. While there was no immediate reaction from the board with another tour just a whisker away, it was inevitable that Bravo’s heresy was met with vengeance and anger.

Bravo’s axing from the ODI team is a manifestation of that spirit. He had burnt his bridges and may not play ODIs for West Indies again but instead may play cricket nomadically. Myriad Twenty20 leagues around the world will be queuing up with lucrative offers that no sane man can refuse.

Schadenfreude has taken effect as Jason Holder, all of 23 years and 21 ODIs, has been handed the reins to a ruin. Holder has been wooed by the WICB and shall remain indebted to the Board; it is a move also aimed at wresting control of the team. West Indies’ brightest fast bowling prospect has been burdened with the task of leading a team in complete disarray a stone’s throw away from the ICC World Cup 2015.

Umpteen players have shuddered at the prospect of captaining a rickety and wobbly team. Holder, already named captain for the ODI series in South Africa, will in all probability lead West Indies into the World Cup as well. He could be shredded to pieces in the prenatal stage of his stint under the assault of a rampaging South Africa and the pressures of captaincy in a volatile team environment.

Though there is no detracting from Holder’s intrinsic merit, he is yet to earn the respect of his comrades. He is hardly a permanent fixture in the side himself, and has strutted into the squad through the revolving door every now and then. Given the bruised egos and team unity which is in tatters, as Marlon Samuels’ comments post the abandoned India tour insinuated,  Holder is not what the doctor ordered for a team that has regressed to a nadir.

(Ankur Dhawan is a reporter with CricketCountry. Heavily influenced by dystopian novels, he naturally has about 59 conspiracy theories for every moment in the game of cricket. On finding a direct link between his head and the tip of his fingers, he also writes about it)