The Benjamin Buttonization of Jason Holder

 It has now been sometime since I watched the Brad Pitt movie 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and while I was watching the recently concluded West Indies versus England test match series, I was time and again looking at this Tall and By no means lanky lad. Yup, Jason Holder. Time and again my mind went to thinking of the Brad Pitt movie. He has started old, continue to be old, I reckon he will only get better and younger when he reverse ages in his old age.

Jason Holder and his consistent selection has been a big wonder for me. Oh how the mighty fell, Oh how the mighty tend to stick onto those whose potentials are guaged more than their actual outcome. Jason Holder fits that bill to a T. Every time a commentator refers to the lad as a West-Indian Quick, A huge smile comes on my face, even though Jason is 6' 7" tall, he cannot bowl quick. Medium pace is also a misnomer, batsmen regularly charge at him. His long levers do not enable him to hit sixes like how a Braithwate, a Dre Rus, or even a C Gayle. His fielding well, if you note the kind of catches he has dropped, and the instances he has done so, the less said the better. 

The only reason I feel the selectors continue to keep him in the team is, there is no one else.

From what I learn, when Jason was just 23 he was handed the Captaincy, however he no longer holds the captaincy in any format, be it tests, ODI's or T20's. Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, B Lara believed in him. 

If I go and look at the teams he has represented outside Caribbean duties, the list stands a very big 19.... Yes you read it right 19. This would imply that no team wants him on a consistent basis. 

Why ???? He hasn't delivered.

He has moved across 4 teams in the IPL

His T20 batting average for National duty is a miserable 16. He has not managed to even score 500 runs for his country at the time of writing this post. 63 matches to boot.  He has not scored any 50 let alone a century. Now let me go to his bowling in T20's for every 3.5 overs that he bowls, he tends to get one wicket, so he is not a strike-bowler. Then the most logical reasoning must be that he must be a containing bowler atleast, that he is not, his economy is nearing 9 runs per over. 

His Franchise T20 numbers are a replica of his national numbers.

Moving onto ODI's

His ODI batting average, in this atleast he has quite a few fifties to his credit, 12 of them to be exact, with 99 being his highest score. His batting average is a miserable 24. His ODI bowling strikerate is even worse than T20, he takes 6.5 overs to get a wicket. His economy is 5.5 runs per over. This is a classic case of not being the all rounder of repute that he should have been. Lack of options perhaps in the Windies Camp.

Finally onto Tests

His test batting average is the best of the 3 formats 29, which means every time he comes to the crease, they hope he will score his 30 runs, which more often than not he does not deliver. He takes 68 balls to get a wicket, which is ~12 overs of bowling to get a wicket, He makes very very scant use of the yorker, and no he does not have the pace to rattle the batsmen. He has had 13 fifties and 3 hundreds which means he scores a fifty once in every 5 tests and he scores a hundred only once in every 22 tests.

Coming back to what you can say is my rant. Why Oh Why the mighty west indies continue to persist with him is something only they can answer, but how long can they continue doing so is the question?