Quote:Which brings us to the other West Indies captain, Jason Holder. Much like his fellow Barbadian and West Indies T20 captain, it is apparent Holder is super talented and smart. Like Brathwaite, he was also handed the reigns too early in his career. Many of us who follow Caribbean cricket were reasonably comfortable with the decisions to appoint him first as captain of the One Day International (ODI) team, and then as captain of the Test team. We were wrong.
To be sure, there were not a lot of options once the selectors decided to move away from Denesh Ramdin. But the captaincy should not have gone to such an inexperienced young man, one who has not yet established himself as a consistently capable player.
And what was the compelling reason for not letting Ramdin continue for a while longer? Holder still has a long way to go in developing his skills. To have burdened him with the responsibilities of captaincy was not only unwise, it was unfair - unfair to him and unfair to West Indies cricket.
Furthermore, it was not like the tall all-rounder was taking the controls of a well-oiled machine that could operate almost like clockwork, requiring only very straightforward direction. Rather, he was asked to lead a side struggling to compete. In that, Holder's situation is unlike that of Brathwaite's. The West Indies T20 side is highly competent. He will have a much easier time adjusting.
There is research that shows that older captains are better able to maintain discipline in a sports team. Discipline, we would all agree, is important to a team's reliability, a trait for which the West Indies is not well known. Holder has consistently been among the youngest members of the team and is West Indies' second youngest Test captain. The fact that his side has generally been a fledgling one is all the more reason the selectors to have chosen a more experienced leader.
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