BRIDGETOWN–New­ly ap­point­ed West In­dies Test cap­tain, Ja­son Hold­er, says he is look­ing for­ward to the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty the new role will bring but says he does not feel un­der any pres­sure as he gears up for the as­sign­ment.The 23-year-old fast bowler was an­nounced to re­place De­nesh Ramdin as Test cap­tain ear­li­er this month, ahead of next month's tour of Sri Lan­ka.

Hold­er, al­so the One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al cap­tain, is a rel­a­tive new­com­er to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et with just eight Tests and 33 ODIs be­hind him, but be­lieves he has what is re­quired to han­dle the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of lead­er­ship."At this present time there's no pres­sure on me. Ob­vi­ous­ly it is some­thing I've done be­fore. I'm the cap­tain of the one-day team," Hold­er said here yes­ter­day in his first of­fi­cial me­dia con­fer­ence.

"It's ob­vi­ous­ly some added re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the Test are­na (but) I don't think it is some­thing that I can't han­dle, if not I would not have tak­en the job. It's about me gelling the guys to­geth­er and get­ting the best out of every­body."

He added: "It is some­thing I am look­ing for­ward to. I've done it a lit­tle bit in the one-day are­na and it is about trans­lat­ing that in­to the Test are­na now. I've ob­vi­ous­ly led teams be­fore, I've led Bar­ba­dos in youth crick­et and I've led West In­dies A teams and stuff like that so I'm not in a sense new to it.

"It is some­thing that I've han­dled in the past be­fore and I don't ex­pect to fal­ter in this are­na in a sense. I'm re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to it, I'm al­ways up for the chal­lenge and I will try to take it on as best as I pos­si­bly can."Hold­er's rise has been me­te­oric since his in­ter­na­tion­al de­but just over two years ago, and has be­come an en­trenched mem­ber of West In­dies in all for­mats of the game.

Picked for his bowl­ing, he has pressed his case as a gen­uine all-rounder with a maid­en Test cen­tu­ry against Eng­land in An­tigua last April and an un­beat­en 82 against the tour­ing Aus­tralians in Kingston last June.Hold­er said, how­ev­er, he did not en­vi­sion the bur­den of cap­tain­cy get­ting in the way of his con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment as a crick­eter.

"It is in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, it is in­ter­na­tion­al sport. You have to ex­pect these things (lead­er­ship roles) as they al­ways come up in in­ter­na­tion­al sport," he told jour­nal­ists.

"It's more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty but I don't think that should im­pede on my crick­et. My crick­et is at heart first. I have to play as a crick­eter first and lead the guys af­ter­ward and I think once I do that, I don't think it (cap­tain­cy) should get in the way of my ac­tu­al crick­et."

He con­tin­ued: "I al­ways look up to the big oc­ca­sions. I think that's where you're re­mem­bered. Peo­ple re­al­ly re­mem­ber you on the big stage at the big mo­ments. If I can put my hand up the ma­jor­i­ty of times in those sit­u­a­tions I think I can leave some­thing be­hind and peo­ple can look back and say 'I re­mem­ber Ja­son Hold­er for this par­tic­u­lar sce­nario or as a par­tic­u­lar in­di­vid­ual.'"

Ap­point­ed ODI cap­tain last De­cem­ber and hav­ing presided over a World Cup cam­paign that saw the Windies reach the quar­ter-fi­nals be­fore bow­ing out, Hold­er said he was hop­ing to build on the work he had start­ed with the one-day unit."It's been a short stint so far as one-day cap­tain. I think over a pe­ri­od of time I think you would get a good analy­sis of how I've been," he said.

"Thus far I've had pret­ty good re­la­tion­ships with most of the guys in the dress­ing room and I can see it build­ing over the next few months and hope­ful­ly in years to come. But as I said, it is about get­ting the re­la­tion­ship build­ing among one an­oth­er and mov­ing for­ward as one col­lec­tive unit."

Hold­er's first as­sign­ment will be the tour of Sri Lan­ka which com­pris­es two Tests, three ODIs and two Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als, and runs from Oc­to­ber 8 to No­vem­ber 12.

CMC