Holding on to amazing memories
MICHAEL Holding never shied away from a challenge – like solving a murder mystery that wasn’t a murder at all. True story.
When a squadron of detectives was trying to get to the bottom of the shock death of Bob Woolmer during the 2007 World Cup, former West Indian quick Holding was the first man to find the truth due to his own little investigation.
But more of that later. Holding, 66, put cricket fans in a wistful mood this week when he announced he was retiring as a commentator.
The cricket world sighed. There’s only one Mikey, born in Jamaica but a citizen of the world.
Afraid of no-one and accountable to nobody, he was one of the most powerful independent voices in the game, as irreplaceable as he was irrepressible.
His was quite a journey. When he signed on with Kerry Packer’s World Series in 1977, Holding was a relatively green 22-year-old who took his little black bank book to the Kingston bank a few days in a row to see whether the $25,000 fee for his services had dropped into his account.
But he grew into a man of great wisdom and with an inquiring mind that took him all sorts of places.
THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE
WHEN Pakistan coach Woolmer died in his bathroom at Jamaica’s Pegasus Hotel soon after a shock loss to Ireland, rumours swept the World Cup he had been murdered.
Woolmer was found naked with his legs apart and cuts in his mouth and nose and even a Scotland Yard detective initially said it was “100 per cent certain Woolmer died from manual strangulation’’.
Holding was never convinced by this talk and decided to look into the matter. He knew the hotel staff well after growing up in the area and as a local legend, he got the maids who found Woolmer to talk him through what they saw.
The key finding was that Woolmer’s body was resting against the inside of the bathroom door when they opened it.
So if Woolmer was murdered in his bathroom, the murderer would at some point have to open the bathroom door to get out, and that would mean, Holding concluded, that Woolmer’s body would have fallen away and not be resting against it.
So there was no murder. It was a simple theory but eventually when all the rumours of player clashes and vengeful Asian betting syndicates melted away, Holding’s view that Woolmer died from natural causes remains the widely accepted one.
THE VOICE OF EQUALITY
HOLDING has become an unofficial figurehead of the fight for racial equality in cricket, sport and wider society with his emotive interview during a rain break on Sky Sports watched more than 7 million times on YouTube.
Through a new book, Why We Kneel, How We Rise, Holding has provided a chastening list of racial discrimination stories told through athletes including Usain Bolt, Michael Johnson and Naomi Osaka. It will be his greatest legacy.
THE TRUTH SEEKER
HOLDING could scarcely believe his eyes when he opened his safe at the Earl’s Regency Hotel in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 2003 while commentating on a Test, and found $30,000 in cash.
Deeply suspicious about its origins in an era when matchfixing was rife, he marched down to reception and handed it in on the condition they told him who had recently occupied the room.
Sri Lankan vice-captain Marvan Atapattu was named among others but said he knew nothing about the money when contacted by the hotel and that it must have been left by someone else.
Holding went on air and announced his “scoop’’ a few hours later, causing a mad scramble by officials to launch a police investigation which, interestingly, found “nothing to see here”.
The cash was never claimed.
THE WICKED WICKET
SABINA Park, Jamaica, was the ground Holding rose from a boy to a man on and he knew everyone from the groundsmen to the governor.
In 1998, it featured a volcanic strip so poor that a Test between England and the West Indies was abandoned after 56 minutes.
Some felt Holding’s association may have softened his view but he said: “I have never seen a pitch as dangerous as that – the people responsible should be brought to task.’’
It was typical Holding.
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