Holder says West Indies are ‘huge underdogs’ but will show plenty of bite

Genial Jason Holder will leave it up to others to decide whether he also has a nasty side as he sets out to make England’s senior players “as uncomfortable as possible” in the Investec Test series.

As the West Indies captain fine-tuned preparations for Britain’s first day-night Test match, starting at Edgbaston today, he acknowledged his team’s status as “massive underdogs” but nonetheless targeted a series win as the minimum benchmark of success over the next month.

Should the tourists manage that over three Tests in England, it will be the first time they have done so in five attempts so far this century – a sequence which has seen them lose the last four series by a combined scoreline of 11-0.

West Indies did hold England to a 1-1 draw on home soil under Holder’s captaincy in 2015, however. That was an occasionally tetchy series, prefaced by England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves’ assessment of the hosts as “mediocre”.

Two years on, asked if he can be nasty if necessary, allrounder Holder maintained an urbane smile as he said: “I’ll leave that to you to determine in this series.”

He does not expect a repeat of the fractious atmosphere which prevailed in the Caribbean, but promised West Indies will meet the challenge head on again.

“I don’t think there’s anything to spark that,” he said. “But we expect a good contest... the English come pretty hard, and we expect to go back just as hard at them.”

On all form, West Indies are up against it once more.

“We’re obviously huge underdogs,” said Holder. “But in our last series against Pakistan, I felt there was significant improvement. We’ve got guys who are showing signs of progress and signs they can compete here at Test level.”

Holder’s men have a marginal advantage over England in exposure to the vagaries of the pink ball under lights – albeit principally with the Kookaburra rather than the Dukes version to be used this week – in a narrow Test defeat by Pakistan last October and in their domestic first-class competition.

“We’ve got a bit of experience,” said Holder.

“The guys really look forward to the pink-ball cricket – I think it’s something we’ve really accepted.

“We’ve been playing it in the Caribbean for a number of years as well.”