T20 is not cricket says Michael Holding

From being the undisputed kings of world cricket during the late 1970s to the early 1990s to becoming one of the weaker teams of the current generation, West Indies cricket has been not even a shadow of themselves in the recent past. Former legendary fast bowler Michael Holding has blamed the administration for the debacle and has pointed his fingers towards several top Windies players choosing T20 leagues over national duty.

Despite languishing in the latest ICC rankings across all three formats, West Indies are still the world champions in the T20 format. West Indies won the 2016 edition of the tournament which was held in India and despite languishing at the 10th spot in the Latest ICC team rankings in T20Is, Windies go into the showpiece event later this year with a reasonable chance in this format.

Speaking on the same, Michael Holding said that he doesn’t consider T20s as cricket and doesn’t feel winning T20 tournaments will help in the development of cricket in the West Indies.

“When you win a T20 tournament, that is not revival; it’s not even cricket! It’s going to be very difficult for the West Indies to get on top in Test cricket because of this T20. The T20 tournaments around the world are the bane of the game. When you are a poor country and can’t afford to pay as much as England, Australia, and India, the players will go on to play T20. That’s where West Indies and others are getting hit,” Holding said.

When it comes to the national team, many of the top players including the likes of Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Andre Russell have excused themselves for several national commitments in order to play in T20 leagues across the globe. Holding blamed the administration and said that once the players are not getting enough money while playing for West Indies, they are bound to choose T20 leagues.

“Unless you can pay as much as the rest of the big countries, this will happen. Many West Indies players are not interested in playing for West Indies. I don’t want to call out names. When you are earning 600,000 or 800,000 dollars for six weeks, what are you going to do? I don’t blame the cricketers. I blame the administrators. They give a lot of lip service to Test cricket but all they are interested in is bringing in money into their cupboards… West Indies will win T20 tournaments which aren’t cricket; they won’t be a force in Test cricket,” he further added.

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