Caribbean L 28 ife, August 7, 2020
Former England Test cricketer
and current cricket commentator
Sir Ian Botham. Action Images / Jason
O’Brien
West Indies’ Jason Holder in action, during the Third Test against England at the Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester,
Britain on July 25, 2020. Martin Rickett / Pool via REUTERS
By Azad Ali
Captain Jason Holder has blamed
mental fatigue arising from the
COVID-19 bio-secure environment
as one of the reasons behind West
Indies’ weak finish to the three-Test
series against England last month.
The Caribbean side started the
series strongly with a four-wicket
win in Southampton but then faded
badly, losing the second Test at Old
Trafford by 113 runs and losing the
final contest at the same venue by
269 runs on the final day last Tuesday.
All three matches were played
back-to-back and behind closed
doors, with players embedded in
hotels barred from contact from the
public since their arrival in the first
week against the threat of the global
pandemic.
“It’s being challenging. I think
mentally some of the guys are a bit
worn out as well,” said Holder after
his side’s defeat which saw them surrender
the Wisden Trophy they won
last year in the Caribbean.
“We’ve been here for four weeks
before the first Test. We had a change
in the environment which we really
enjoyed at Southampton but then to
come back here to Manchester to see
the same people, same place, same
rooms was a bit difficult,” he said.
“It could be this way for a little
while so we’ve just got to find ways to
make it work. Hopefully, things can
ease up throughout the world and
probably the guys can get out of the
hotel a little bit more or less, it has
been mentally challenging for sure,”
Holder told reporters.
Holder, who also struggled with
the bat to slip out of the top position
in the all-rounder’s rankings, urged
his batsmen to focus on converting
fifties into centuries in the future.
phy will now be designed and ready
for when the teams next meet in a
Test series.
The title honors Sir Vivian Richards,
one of the cricket’s greatest
batsmen who scored more than
8,500 runs in a 121-Test career
and Sir Ian Botham, the legendary
all-rounder who scored more than
5,000 runs and took 383 wickets in
102 Tests.
Fierce competitors on the pitch,
the pair developed a great friendship
off it which still endures and
the new trophy is a fitting way
to celebrate the warm relationship
between the two nations and to
honor the gladiatorial spirit of contests
past and present.
The Wisden Trophy, first introduced
in 963 to commemorate
the hundredth edition of Wisden
Cricketers’ Almanac, will now be
returned and will be displayed at the
MCC Museum at Lord’s where it has
traditionally been kept.
rently, anyone traveling to the UAE
needs to test negative before flying in,
and also has to take a test upon landing.
If both tests are negative there is
no quarantine period. But if a person
lands without having done a test prior
to flying in, then a quarantine period
is mandatory.
The IPL will comprise 60 matches
and will be played over 51 days. In the
original schedule prepared in March
for this year, the tournament days
stretched to 50 to keep the doubleheader
minimal, a request of the
franchises who did not want players
to suffer during the peak Indian
summer.
Continued from Page 27
picking up just two wickets in the
final Test while fast bowler Shannon
Gabriel remained unmoved at 19th
after claiming just two scalps.
IPL Governing Council Chairman,
Brijesh Patel. Associated Press / Gautam
Singh, File
Continued from Page 27
Continued from Page 27
Holder blames mental fatigue for series lost
IPL shifts to the UAE
New trophy
Bowling
rankings