Why this could be Australia's final Test tour of the West Indies
Holding, who claimed 249 Test wickets at 23.68, will not be in Jamaica at the match. He has no desire to be.
'To be honest, I have moved on from cricket,' Holding said. 'The authorities are doing whatever they feel like irrespective of what anyone says, so I see no need to continue beating my head against a stone wall. I don't even watch the games any more, so I'm sorry, but I can't help you.'
Holding's words echo a broader disillusionment across the Caribbean – a region where Test cricket's relevance has sharply declined amid the rise of T20 leagues and shifting priorities.
Signs of the game's diminishing footprint are everywhere. Attendances for the Barbados and Grenada Tests were modest, with the vast majority of fans flying in from Australia.
Many made the pilgrimage believing it could be the last opportunity to witness a West Indies Test tour against Australia on home soil.
Among locals, enthusiasm for Test cricket has waned. When this masthead arrived in Kingston, a taxi driver proudly shared his plans to attend 'the match on the 20th'.
He was unaware the third Test was scheduled for July 12-16. The game he had in mind was a T20 fixture to follow the Test series.
Holding's indifference about the state of the game is juxtaposed to the frustration of another legendary West Indian fast bowler in Andy Roberts.
'It would be a shame if the West Indies were barred from playing at the highest level because they were struggling at the moment,' Roberts said.
'All teams go through these types of situations, granted that West Indies is not doing too much to get back to the highest level of cricket. They're more focusing on the money and that will be the end of cricket.
'I think that something needs to be done for the future of cricket to maintain the highest standards. T20 is damaging Test cricket. Look at Australia. Their batting is weak. If Australia met a decent West Indian team now, they would get beat.'
Competitiveness is another factor influencing Australia's desire to tour. Between 1980 and 1995, the West Indies didn't lose a Test series – a remarkable streak spanning 29 campaigns. Since April 1999, they've only beaten Australia twice.
The home side had chances to claim victories in both Barbados and Grenada, but fragile batting cost them dearly.
'We've shown our desire to continue to play Test cricket, both here and abroad,' Cricket Australia chief executive boss Todd Greenberg told this masthead before the West Indies series. 'That's pretty well evidenced by the fact we're playing three Tests in the West Indies. It's a complex calendar, the global calendar of bilateral cricket.
'The next ICC meeting is scheduled for July [in Singapore], so I'd be hoping for some more clarity about [the Futures Tour Program].'
Roberts, however, believes the odds are stacked against his team and that the ICC and West Indies Cricket have not done enough to lift the struggling giant.
Loading
'I can bet you, if it were one of the top-tier teams, whether it was England, India or Australia going through the period that the West Indies has gone through, they would be given a helping hand to come in and assist them,' Roberts said.
'We need administrators who played cricket. We have dug a grave for ourselves because we don't have the people who played the game at the highest level administering the game and around the game.'
If this is indeed Australia's last Test tour of the West Indies, it will stand as a quiet warning that even the game's most iconic contests are not immune to cricket's shifting tides.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7NEWS
an hour ago
- 7NEWS
Australia's amazing bowling line-up dominate top 10 Test rankings after West Indies rout
The Australian bowlers' destruction of West Indies in Kingston has resulted in five of their record-breaking attack now flourishing in the top 10 of the ICC's Test bowling rankings. Scott Boland's three wickets in each innings at Sabina Park, including a hat-trick as Australia sealed their whitewash three-Test triumph by, incredibly, bowling out the home side for 27, has ensured the veteran paceman moves up six places into a career-best sixth place in the rankings. The late-blooming 36-year-old, who never lets Australia down whenever he gets the chance with his 62 wickets at 16.53 apiece, has joined captain Pat Cummins (third), Josh Hazlewood (fourth), Nathan Lyon (eighth) and Mitchell Starc (10th) in a rare single-country domination of the bowling table. Boland's PB is quite staggering with respected sports reporter Harrison Reid noting that: 'The sixth best bowler in the world isn't in his own country's best four.' The ICC said you would have to go back to 1958 to find a similar domination of the table. A historical rating showed that England had half-a-dozen bowlers in the top 12 back in 1958, including the likes of Jim Laker, Tony Lock, Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham. Still, though, top of the current pile remains the uniquely brilliant Indian quick, Jasprit Bumrah, whose seven wickets during their defeat by England at Lord's this week enabled him to stay 50 points ahead of Australia's World Test final tormentor, South African Kagiso Rabada. Meanwhile, Joe Root's knocks of 104 and 40 in the enthralling third-Test win have ensured he goes back to the top of the batting rankings, a week after his fellow Yorkshire star Harry Brook had gone to No.1. It's the eighth time Root has taken top spot and, at 34, he's the oldest No.1 batter since Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara was leading the way back in December 2014 at the age of 37. It's not looking so healthy for the Australian batters on the world stage, after some of their top-order struggles in the Caribbean, with only fourth-placed veteran Steve Smith in the top 10 with a ranking of 816 compared to Root's 888. Travis Head is the next best Aussie in 11th place on 740.
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Aussie bowlers command Test rankings after Windies rout
The Australian bowlers' destruction of West Indies in Kingston has resulted in five of their record-breaking attack now flourishing in the top 10 of the ICC's Test bowling rankings. Scott Boland's three wickets in each innings at Sabina Park, including a hat-trick as Australia sealed their whitewash three-Test triumph by, incredibly, bowling out the home side for 27, has ensured the veteran paceman moves up six places into a career-best sixth place in the rankings. The late-blooming 36-year-old, who never lets Australia down whenever he gets the chance with his 62 wickets at 16.53 apiece, has joined captain Pat Cummins (third), Josh Hazlewood (fourth), Nathan Lyon (eighth) and Mitchell Starc (10th) in a rare single-country domination of the bowling table. The ICC said you would have to go back to 1958 to find a similar domination of the table. A historical rating showed that England had half-a-dozen bowlers in the top 12 back in 1958, including the likes of Jim Laker, Tony Lock, Freddie Trueman and Brian Statham. Still, though, top of the current pile remains the uniquely brilliant Indian quick, Jasprit Bumrah, whose seven wickets during their defeat by England at Lord's this week enabled him to stay 50 points ahead of Australia's World Test final tormentor, South African Kagiso Rabada. Meanwhile, Joe Root's knocks of 104 and 40 in the enthralling third-Test win have ensured he goes back to the top of the batting rankings, a week after his fellow Yorkshire star Harry Brook had gone to No.1. It's the eighth time Root has taken top spot and, at 34, he's the oldest No.1 batter since Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara was leading the way back in December 2014 at the age of 37. It's not looking so healthy for the Australian batters on the world stage, after some of their top-order struggles in the Caribbean, with only fourth-placed veteran Steve Smith in the top 10 with a ranking of 816 compared to Root's 888. Travis Head is the next best Aussie in 11th place on 740.
Sydney Morning Herald
14 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Top Cricket Australia execs out as Greenberg swings the axe to save cash
Fifteen staff members have been axed and the head of the national teams removed from the executive team as Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg tightens the belt in his first few months in the job. CA staff were informed of the changes on Tuesday, with two executives – head of people and culture Allison Robison and head of technology Don Elliott – to depart the organisation and Ben Oliver removed from Greenberg's executive team. Most redundant employees will leave CA by the end of the month. A CA spokesperson confirmed the changes to this masthead, which are the biggest cutbacks since a raft of staff were made redundant during COVID-19. The overhaul, which comes just months after Greenberg started in the top job, was the result of long hours that he spent in Jolimont in April, during the customary office shutdown at the end of the cricket season. He was sequestered with members of the finance team, looking for ways to take costs out of the CA balance sheet. The CA board, chaired by Mike Baird, has a strategic goal of restoring the governing body's cash reserves to the kinds of $100 million-plus levels it enjoyed before the pandemic. The 2024 annual report stated that CA had around $25 million cash and cash equivalents up its sleeve. Loading Also leaving CA is Megan Barnett-Smith, the head of social impact and sustainability. Her areas of responsibility, including the governing body's Indigenous reconciliation action plan, will be spread across the remaining executives. Longtime head of sports science and former men's team physio Alex Kountouris is another significant figure to exit. His role will be restructured. Oliver, who remains a key link man between the No.1-ranked men's and women's national teams and the top levels of the organisation, will no longer be on the executive. He will report into the executive general manager of cricket, James Allsopp, who had his role expanded last year to cover all levels of cricket, not just junior and community participation.
