The West Indies all-rounder believes that his teammates have a lot of potential in the Test arena

If the West Indies Test team can remain united and gain more playing time, Jason Holder thinks they will get better.

Holder’s unbroken 81 has put West Indies, who are now playing their sixth Test of the year, in a position to contend for a second victory. 

There is a growing perception that they will continue to be behind teams in the top half of the World Test Championship (WTC) table, something that Jason Holder believes will only alter with more game time and support. Batting collapses have been a common element of their scorecards.

“We have been a little bit slow; we’ve been a little bit inconsistent but I think we just need to support people,”

Holder said. 

“You see the talent that we have in the dressing room. We’ve got Test hundreds from No. 1 down to down to No. 8, with the exception of Raymon Reifer, who has just come in.”

“We’ve got to have that patience and build a strong core group of players. The more we chop and change in cricket, the worse results we will probably get because we need to give people opportunity. The urge for me and everybody else within the group is just to keep getting the opportunities and taking them with both hands.”

Holder highlighted the lack of West Indies matches in the Future Tours Programme last week after becoming the second West Indies player to take 150 Test wickets and amass 2500 runs. The MCC has also voiced reservations about this issue. 

They will only play 26 Test matches from July to August of this year until 2027, fewer than South Africa, Pakistan, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Australia, India, and England, which won’t give them as much time as Holder would like to develop into a solid team.

Despite that, he believes that this team can keep playing and developing together.

“I love playing cricket with this group and I think we’ve got the talent in the dressing room to produce results. We will have some slow days but we are only day two of this Test match and I have no doubt our players can come in and show their worth and class in the second innings.”

Holder believes that batting last “you can easily get 300-plus” but conceded “it won’t be easy” on a pitch that both teams anticipate would begin to take more turn as the game progresses. 

He acknowledged that South Africa currently has the advantage, but added that “more often than not, we tend to play well coming from behind”. At SuperSport Park, it became clear when West Indies defeated South Africa for 116 in the second innings to set themselves a manageable total of 247.

They were unable to reach there in large part because of Kagiso Rabada‘s six-for, but two of the other three South African bowlers who were a part of that defense are not participating in this Test. 

Wiaan Mulder, an all-around player, was given the responsibility of sharing the new ball when Anrich Nortje was forced to withdraw due to injury and Marco Jansen was given a break. 

Wiaan Mulder put in a respectable but not remarkable performance to take 1 for 40. Holder reinforced his rhetoric about giving players time to adjust to the international stage and a respectable stint in a team when asked what advice he could provide to Mulder, who is his teammate at Durban’s SuperGiants, when he was asked.

“Test cricket is a massive step up from first-class cricket. I think any individual needs time. We tend to critique people very quickly, which is fair, but people need an opportunity and people need time and support,”

he said. 

“Once you have the support and good people around you then you will get the results. Sometimes we just get too critical, too fast, of people and we don’t give them enough time to actually show what they’re made of.” 

“It’s hard losing sides and sides that haven’t had success. But more often than not, I think you need to stick behind your players, keep a strong pool of players together and back them.”

Shukri Conrad, the new red-ball coach for South Africa, plans to achieve just that. He said he hopes to work with a core group of players who will all be a part of the next WTC cycle during South Africa’s lean winter. 

He has used all 15 members of the squad in these two matches. After this game, South Africa won’t play any more tests until December, but they want to play as much A-team cricket as possible so they can assemble their strongest team to face India at the end of the year. Conrad called this finding “content” in cricket.

While South Africa’s players are concerned about the absence of Test matches, they also view the unplanned break as an opportunity to do as Holder recommended and develop players similarly to how they did with someone like Gerald Coetzee. 

The 22-year-old quickly went to Australia as a backup bowler, where he saw how intense international practices were and prepared for his debut, which he made last week.

He was the second-change bowler for South Africa in a four-bowler seam attack there, and he is currently the third member of a young pace attack. He has relished the task.

“What you learn is you still want to bowl the best ball possible. If you bowl one that isn’t your best but still get a wicket, it’s always a bonus. It does happen and it can happen at any moment because there is pressure over a long time. Suddenly there’s a release shot, which might go to the boundary but might also lead to a wicket because he hasn’t received a bad ball for a while,”

Coetzee said. 

“However, at this level, the more you ‘miss’, the better you are. If you look at the best bowlers in the world, they can do the same thing over and over. That’s what we all strive for.”