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'In The Caribbean, We Don't Have Facilities' - Jason Holder Blasts Cricket West Indies

image-lotlmw2zHolder is in India for Rajasthan Royals' camp (Twitter)

Jason Holder underlined the sorry state of affairs with West Indies cricket by highlighting the pedestrian nature of training facilities provided to the regional players, with Cricket West Indies (CWI) failing to ensure proper development of cricketers. 

The former West Indies captain and key allrounder, who is in India and training under state-of-the-art facilities provided by his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals (RR), said training facilities back home stand no match to the ones Royals have put in place for their ongoing high-performance camp. 

With West Indies failing to qualify for the ICC World Cup 2023, Holder is one of the international players available for the training camp organised ahead of the IPL 2024. The experienced cricketer's eyes would've lit up seeing Royals provide the best coaching and practice sessions for all the cricketers, unlike CWI.

The Caribbean's substandard training facilities have been a point of discussion for quite some time and were brought into global focus and attention by premier India off-spinner and Holder's Royals teammate Ravichandran Ashwin when he was building towards the two-match Test series against the West Indies in July. 

Holder Highlights Caribbean's Substandard Training Facilities 

"Unfortunately in the Caribbean we don't have facilities that are equivalent to this. We just have normal grounds. There's no training ground...I just found it necessary to get away from the Caribbean," Holder was quoted as saying by 'Caribbean Cricket' podcast.

Ashwin had lamented CWI for providing lacklustre training facilities for the visiting Indian side and upheld that as one of the reasons behind West Indies' unarrested decline on the world stage. Holder, who is one of the leading Caribbean players and would've grown up training on such grounds and nets, would agree with his Royals teammate's assertion. 

"We played at the Barbados Test Centre. While we practiced in the nets, there was no grass left on the surface. Their nets looked too old. I am not saying these things to blame them. I actually feel really bad for them," Ashwin had said on his YouTube channel. 

"If the infrastructure is like this in their Test centre, then how hard their cricketers should work to get better? Because once they practice under these conditions, and suddenly when they come to India and play on a slightly quicker surface, it will be difficult for them to adjust."