If someone had commented that West Indies was to win a Test on their tour of England this season, that person would have been laughed off with ease.
However, known for their ever mercurial ways of playing the game, West Indies stunned everyone with their top notch performance at Leeds, chasing down a colossal 322 in the fourth innings, to win the game. There have been numerous tales about the once giants of cricket West Indies, resurrecting to their old shape, but such talks have often been short lived. But now, with the emergence of a class batsman like Shai Hope, who was the best batsman of the Test series on either side, things do look optimistic.
Hope has all the attributes within him to succeed in the longest form of the game, and if the West Indies sort out their off field issues, they could take the giant strides towards improvement.
“I’ve heard it so many times, and it’s always the same old story,” said Michael Holding. “Have we turned the corner? We’ve turned about 40 corners since the year 2000,” added Holding.
Skipper Jason Holder too mentioned that barring Darren Bravo and Chris Gayle, not all veterans of West Indies were inclined towards Test cricket.
“But apart from Darren, I don’t think there’s anybody else who’s interested in playing Test cricket that we can really call upon or the so-called big names people are looking for,” Holder said, “Chris has probably hinted that he would like to play if he’s fit enough.”
“But first we’ve got Zimbabwe, in a few weeks’ time, so hopefully we can really kick on from there,” he added. “Obviously Shai was outstanding in this entire series, and we must not forget Kraigg’s contribution as well, he really did a hell of a job, especially at Headingley. “I think we’ve shown improvement. We’ve definitely shown that, especially in our bowling.”