West Indies pacer and now commentator, Michael Holding bravely declared that IPL tournaments are “not even cricket”. He said that is why he never bothered to join the game as a commentator. He called the T20s ” the bane of cricket”. Translating a curse on cricket. This is a major reason for his stress about the future of cricket in the West Indies.
Holding added that teams like West Indies that do not have a strong financial backup as England, Australia and India have to settle with T20s. This in turn makes the players weak and they lack the knowledge over real cricket format, Tests, and One day. His angst came over premier leagues like IPL too. He thinks that these kinds of tournaments are not cricket tournaments.
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In the bout with Deputy Associate Editor of The Indian Express Sriram Veera, he even added that Virat Kohli is much similar to Vivian Richards. The declaration followed by calling the Indian team fit than it was earlier. Opening his book written about racism, ‘Why We Kneel, How We Rise’, Holding shared the reason to write the book.
He said that in sports racism is present in an “institutional and systematic” manner. He even gave the example of Colin Kaepernick, a footballer who recently had to lose his career when he called out racism among peers. Giving this example he said that those who called out racism had to watch their career-ending in no time.
Michael shared how safe and belonged he felt when reached his country after facing racism in other places of the world. He further added that though however content he felt in his home, not calling out racism had been a selfish act. He did not want to lose the career he loved.