"Oh, what a night. Late De­cem­ber back in ‘63 was a spe­cial time for me". The Four Sea­sons (an Amer­i­can rock and pop band) brought back re­al mem­o­ries as Sat­ur­day was so spe­cial I changed the words to: “Oh what a day back in Feb­ru­ary when the West In­dies mauled Eng­land and the Red Force tamed the Guyana Jaguars."

I planned not to write about the Eng­land tour un­til the se­ries was over as I hon­est­ly ex­pect­ed an Eng­land back­lash af­ter the ham­mer­ing they took with the first Test de­feat. How this West In­dies team has per­formed is be­yond any­one’s wildest dreams.

They have ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions. Let us for­get about Eng­land and their No 3 rank­ing as I am not in­ter­est­ed in whether Eng­land’s prepa­ra­tion was sub-par and if they were too com­pla­cent be­cause at the end of the day, they were slaugh­tered by a team that was well pre­pared; a team that was to­geth­er; a team that want­ed to win and by a team that was well led.

To be hon­est Ja­son Hold­er was a rev­e­la­tion. I be­lieved he was hand­ed the West In­dies cap­tain­cy too ear­ly in his ca­reer and it af­fect­ed his per­for­mances. Tac­ti­cal­ly, I felt he was too de­fen­sive and on many oc­ca­sions, he al­lowed the op­po­si­tion off the hook be­cause he was afraid to take a bold step and at­tack and put pres­sure on the op­pos­ing bats­men. More of­ten than not, we turned po­ten­tial­ly win­ning po­si­tions in­to ei­ther los­ing or draw­ing a game.

In the last year, his per­for­mances have es­ca­lat­ed and he has reached heights that few could have imag­ined. His rank­ings as an all-rounder in world crick­et have shot up tremen­dous­ly and this has giv­en him the boost to lead the West In­dies with a ma­tu­ri­ty that was lack­ing be­fore this Eng­land se­ries. His en­tire de­meanor has changed; he looks more con­fi­dent on the field lead­ing the team both with bat and ball. He sim­ply oozes con­fi­dence that we have not seen be­fore.

Sig­nif­i­cant cred­it for this his­toric se­ries win against Eng­land must be giv­en to Hold­er. His bat­ting has im­proved with every in­nings and his bowl­ing now has an­oth­er di­men­sion to it. His line and length is im­mac­u­late, he swings the ball ap­pre­cia­bly and be­cause of his height, the bounce he gen­er­ates makes it un­com­fort­able for the op­pos­ing bats­men.

Hold­er’s ac­com­plices Ke­mar Roach, Shan­non Gabriel and young Alzarri Joseph were out­stand­ing in the sec­ond Test. Then of course Ros­ton Chase who did the dam­age with the ball in the first Test. It was a joy to see our fast bowlers work over the Eng­lish bats­men. Where were these guys in Bangladesh and In­dia? I know the pitch­es did not suit them but Andy Roberts and com­pa­ny bowled on many pitch­es that did not suit them but they bowled with in­tel­li­gence and al­lowed the ball to do the talk­ing so I am hop­ing that our fast bowlers learn how to be ef­fec­tive on pitch­es that are docile.

Our bat­ting was sol­id. Even though out­side of Hold­er and Shane Dowrich no one got hun­dreds, they all bat­ted with guts and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Dar­ren Bra­vo was out­stand­ing; he stuck it out man­ful­ly when it was so easy for him to play a big shot and get out. This was a West In­dies team that we have not seen for a long, long time. I wish I could ex­plain the turn­around. Could it have been the Eng­lish scribes writ­ing this team off and for­mer play­ers say­ing they were or­di­nary and av­er­age? What­ev­er it was, this West In­dies team was bril­liant.

Let us, how­ev­er, keep our feet on the ground. As Aris­to­tle re­marked, “one swal­low does not a sum­mer make”. This team has shown us what they can achieve and they must per­form like this every sin­gle day of a Test match. The ICC has giv­en the Eng­lish a life­line by the bizarre, ridicu­lous rule re­gard­ing the ban and fine met­ed out to Hold­er for a slow over rate. A game fin­ish­es in three days and you ban a cap­tain for a slow over rate? To avoid this, he would have had to with­draw Roach and Gabriel from the at­tack and bowl Chase and Camp­bell for about eight overs; speed up the over rate and give Eng­land about 40 runs and there­by set two bats­men.

I am ful­ly well aware that this is a rule re­gard­ing slow over rates and I am sure Hold­er is aware of it as well. How­ev­er, you have four fast bowlers bowl­ing out an op­po­si­tion in three days; what is he ex­pect­ed to do? Please give me a break. It is painful­ly ob­vi­ous that the ICC hi­er­ar­chy needs to re­view the rule. Sure­ly, if they were wast­ing time the um­pires could have stepped in.

If West In­dies crick­et is to move for­ward, our fast bowlers will be at the fore­front so poor Hold­er will be banned from a Test every se­ries. I do hope Crick­et West In­dies will lob­by the ICC to amend the rule.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I will leave the Red Force analy­sis for next week. Once again, let’s salute the Windies and the Red Force!

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this col­umn are sole­ly those of the writer and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.