LON­DON – For­mer Test cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er has praised the “spe­cial tal­ent” in the West In­dies squad and says their ex­ploits in the Test win over Aus­tralia in Bris­bane last Jan­u­ary gave him a “re­newed en­er­gy” for the three-match se­ries against Eng­land start­ing on Wednes­day (Ju­ly 10).

The 32-year-old, who led the Caribbean side in 37 of his 64 Tests and was at the helm on the last tour here at the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic four years ago, has not played a match in the longest for­mat in 12 months.

Af­ter de­clin­ing a cen­tral con­tract last year, he opt­ed out of the tour of Aus­tralia, with Crick­et West In­dies an­nounc­ing he had “ex­pressed a pref­er­ence to ex­plore T20 Fran­chise op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

“It is what it is. You see a cou­ple Ki­wi play­ers just turn down cen­tral con­tracts, a cou­ple South African play­ers turn down cen­tral con­tracts so it is where the game is mov­ing,” Hold­er told re­porters.

“I guess it’s not my job to find so­lu­tions; each and every per­son has their per­son­al de­ci­sion to make.

“I was just so hap­py for the boys when they did what they did in Aus­tralia. For me, it gave me a re­newed en­er­gy just to come back to the group and try to be part of some­thing spe­cial again.

“I was re­al­ly hap­py to play a few first class games in the Caribbean this year – I haven’t played prob­a­bly for the last four years. And it was good to play a cou­ple first class games and then come over here in the Eng­lish sum­mer.

“All in all, I’m just hap­py I’ve been able to get the body up and be­ing up for the chal­lenge here. [I’ve] missed Test crick­et. This is my first Test match for a long time so I’m look­ing for­ward to it.”

Hold­er is one of the more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers in an oth­er­wise young squad fea­tur­ing the likes of un­capped open­er Mikyle Louis, along with bats­men Al­ick Athanaze, Kirk McKen­zie and Kavem Hodge, and bowlers Kevin Sin­clair, Gu­dakesh Motie and Shamar Joseph – none of whom have played five Tests.

How­ev­er, all of them con­tributed on the tour of Aus­tralia as West In­dies man­aged to draw the two-Test se­ries, af­ter pulling off a sen­sa­tion­al eight-run win in the fi­nal game in Bris­bane – their first suc­cess on Aus­tralian soil in near­ly three decades.

“I think the guys took a lot from that Test vic­to­ry in Aus­tralia ob­vi­ous­ly and for the group, we’ve been do­ing some pos­i­tive things over the last cou­ple months, and I think as a young side the main thing is to keep learn­ing,” he said.

“It’s some­thing that I stress on in­side the group, each and every in­di­vid­ual tak­ing what they can take from each ex­pe­ri­ence and just build­ing on it.

“We will be faced with dif­fer­ent chal­lenges here in Eng­land, it’s just a mat­ter for each in­di­vid­ual to un­der­stand them, learn from them so it makes them bet­ter for the next day.

“What we have in the dress­ing room is some spe­cial tal­ent. We’ve got some spe­cial tal­ent in our dress­ing room – no doubt about it. It’s just a mat­ter for us to play some sol­id crick­et and just be­lieve.”

West In­dies cur­rent­ly hold the Both­am-Richards Tro­phy fol­low­ing their shock 1-0 se­ries win in the Caribbean two years ago.

And while West In­dies have not won a se­ries in Eng­land for 36 years, Hold­er said the im­mi­nent se­ries pre­sent­ed the ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“The last two times Eng­land would’ve toured the West In­dies, we beat them and the last two times we toured Eng­land in the re­cent past they would’ve beat­en us,” Hold­er point­ed out.

“So I think it’s time for some­one to break the shack­les and it’s no bet­ter time than now for us to come here and beat Eng­land.

“I think that would be an ab­solute­ly great feat; noth­ing that I think that this team is short of.

“I be­lieve in every in­di­vid­ual in this group and based on what I’ve seen over the last cou­ple days and the last cou­ple months – play­ing first class crick­et back at home for a few games and ob­vi­ous­ly see­ing a few play­ers here – it’s been great.

“I’ve re­al­ly en­joyed be­ing around the group again.”

CMC