West Indies captain, Jason Holder is the latest to signal his satisfaction with the future of the Caribbean’s fast-bowling department.
The 28-year-old fast bowling all-rounder gave his seal of approval during a virtual press conference on Tuesday, ahead of the opening day of their first Test against England yesterday.
“Our fast bowling core has been and is growing and growing nicely,” he said.
“We have quite a few young fast bowlers. Obviously with the circumstances we had to bring a bigger extended touring party and it has given us the luxury of working with some of the young fast bowlers,” he added.
The number one ranked all-rounder in Test cricket said he was impressed with all of the bowlers.
“I must tell you I have been impressed with all of them.
“All of them look very great, they look fit, [and] they look healthy,” said Holder who is the skipper of the Barbados Pride team.
“Obviously there is a lot of room for improvement but the beauty of having them here is that they’re open to learning and I think they would have grasped so many things over the last couple of weeks,” he said.
He continued:”You’ve seen it in warm-up games we had and then coming back into the nets. I would remark that the practice sessions we had yesterday [Monday] was one of the best practice sessions I’ve seen in my time probably playing cricket. It was very lively the fast bowlers ran in and they really challenged the batters.”
He said the future was bright once the bowlers could remain healthy.
“I think it says a lot about the future of these young guys, if they could stay on track, stay fit and healthy then we would have a really good core of fast bowlers.”
Holder namedropped 23-year-old Antiguan quick, Alzarri Joseph as one of those who have come into his own over the last couple of seasons while the likes of experienced campaigners in Shannon Gabriel and Kemar Roach have been exemplary role models.
Also included in Holder’s approval list were Chemar Holder, who finished in the local First-Class season as the leading seamer and Guyana Jaguars left-arm pacer, Raymon Reifer.
Recently, the management unit of West Indies, including head coach, Phil Simmons, batting coach, Floyd Reifer and assistant coaches, Rayon Griffith and Roddy Estwick have all expressed the bowling unit as a strong point of the West Indies side.
