Michael Holding

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:41

My castaway this week is the cricket commentator and former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding. Known as Whispering Death on the pitch and for his mellifluous commentary off it, he is a cricket legend, widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers in Test history.

Presenter0:58

Born in Halfway Tree, Kingston, Jamaica, he made his debut for his home island aged 18 in 1973. He played in his first Test match for the West Indies two years later, becoming part of a team who would go on to make sporting history, not losing a single series for 15 years. In that time, he bowled what many cricket historians regard as the greatest over in Test history to the English batsman Geoffrey Boycott. Retirement brought a second career. His euphonious delivery, combined with an intimate knowledge of the game, made him one of the most respected broadcast commentators of recent times. He moved beyond the boundary last year. When Rain stopped play, he delivered a powerful monologue on racism in sport and society. It won him numerous prizes, including a Royal Television Society Award. And it was, like much of his career, unplanned. He says, A lot of things I've done in my life, I never planned them. I pretty much live my life as it comes. When I played Test cricket, it wasn't like I ever sat down as a little boy and said, I'm going to play for the West Indies. Michael Holding, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Michael Holding2:08

Thank you very much, Lauren. Glad to be here.

Presenter2:11

So Mikey, you might not have planned it out, but it has been an impressive career, an integral part of the most successful West Indian cricketing era, commentating on the game for over thirty years. How does it feel when you reflect on all that, as we will be today?

Michael Holding2:13

Yeah.

Michael Holding2:25

I feel very lucky, Lauren. To be honest, I feel very, very fortunate, because my life could have been so different but for this game cricket.

Presenter2:33

You've said that this is your last year in the commentary box, and I know so many people will miss your beautiful voice. You've also been a very straight talking commentator, though. You're unafraid to speak the truth about what's going on in the game. How is that received at home, I wonder?

Michael Holding2:47

In the Caribbean, I've been called biased before. You talk about somebody from Trinidad, he doesn't like Trinidad. He doesn't like people from Antigua. He doesn't like anyone from Guyana. Eventually, when I criticized the Jamaican where I am from, they said, oh, I don't like that particular person. But that's just the way it is. After a while, although some people might not like some of the things that I say, they respect what I'm saying. So I don't worry about that too much.

Presenter3:11

Cricket fans will know that you're not too enamored of the new Razmataz in the sport, Mikey. This twenty twenty format, these short, fast matches though, they are growing in popularity. What if you're on the wrong side of history and this is the future of the game?

Michael Holding3:24

Maybe it is. I have no idea, Lauren, because I can definitely see that that's the direction in which the administrators are going. They keep on giving lip service to Test cricket and they keep on talking about it's the ultimate game, but they have been shortened it more, Lauren. They now have a hundred ball game. So they'll move from one hundred and twenty balls now to a hundred balls.

Presenter3:43

Your lifelong passion is test cricket. What fires your imagination about it?

Michael Holding3:48

Because it is an ultimate test of character, of skill, of longevity. You go out and play a 120 ball or 100 ball game and a batsman, for instance, goes out there, he gets 45 runs from 15 balls, and he comes in every everyone tells him he has done a great job. 15 balls, Lauren. 15 balls?

Michael Holding4:12

You go out and you bowl four overs and you may get two for thirty. They say, Oh, you have done a fantastic job. For four overs, can you do it for ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen overs? That is the true test of someone's ability, not four overs.

Presenter4:26

Well, we're going to talk more of sport, but of course we've got to make time for the music, and we're about to hear your first disc today, Michael. How have you gone about choosing your selections today?

Michael Holding4:35

Well most of my selections are from my early days. They they have a lasting impression on me. Now this first one for instance is when I just had one television station in Jamaica and we used to hear Deion Warwick on a Sunday and we used to just make sure that we never missed it.

Presenter4:52

So why have you chosen this particular track?

Michael Holding4:54

Because I want to tell people this is what I am. Don't try to make me over. Accept me as I am.

Speaker 45:01

Don't make me over

Speaker 45:04

Don't make me oh

Speaker 45:09

Glad you got me at your command.

Speaker 45:18

That's not the morning!

Speaker 45:22

It's something good thing could I do?

Speaker 45:26

Except the boy.

Presenter5:31

Don't Make Me Over, Dion Warwick.

Presenter5:34

So, Mikey, I want to take you back to July 2020. Rain had stopped play during the TV coverage of a Test match, and you began an impromptu speech that would become a four-minute monologue on institutional racism. This was in the wake of George Floyd's death. You went on to win numerous awards for your eloquence and passion, and you were speaking from the heart, weren't you? It was completely unscripted. Tell me about that moment.

Michael Holding5:58

Yeah, well

Michael Holding6:00

You know, these things have been bugging me and in on in my mind for decades, but I just let it just wash over me and I move on. And, you know, Lauren, I just wish that we could come to the point in life where people just see people as people. And people stop seeing religions and races and genders and that sort of a thing. And we are just people. And it just came out. It just came flowing. I didn't even realize it. I spoke for four minutes.

Presenter6:29

Yeah, well you said something really interesting though when you were describing it. You said I had those experiences and for a long time I just shrugged them off and moved on.

Michael Holding6:38

Every time something happened to me, I shrugged it off because I said to myself, I don't live this life in Jamaica. I'm going back to Jamaica when I'm done, and this is something that I'll just put behind me. I don't have to live it. But after a while, after coming to England so many years and then being involved in society itself, meeting so many Caribbean people here in England, it started to wear on me, to be honest. It was not just something I could keep on shrugging off.

Presenter7:09

I think you once said, Mikey, if I'd grown up in the UK I would be dead now. What do you mean by that?

Michael Holding7:14

When I was a young man, Lauren, I was a little bit fiery. If people remember my cricketing career, I kicked out a stump in New Zealand in 1980 because of my fiery nature at that point in time. I've milled a lot. I have calmed down a lot. But growing up with that sort of fiery temperament, I could have done something that I should not have done. And especially if I had lived in America, I wouldn't have gotten to teenage.

Presenter7:19

I think

Presenter7:26

Yeah.

Speaker 47:26

Yeah.

Presenter7:39

You said that you you didn't and and don't experience racism at home in Jamaica, but it was when you left that it started to come into focus for you. What happened? When did you remember the the kind of earliest incidents of that?

Michael Holding7:52

Earliest incidents were in Australia. Happened in a lift where the door opened, the gentleman saw us and refused to come into the lift because perhaps he felt intimidated by the black men in the lift. But as the door was closing, he shouted a racist remark, you know, those sorts of things. But what I keep on telling people, Dorina, Lauren, although these things happen, I've had a lot more positive experiences in Australia, in England, wherever, than the negative ones.

Presenter8:21

And there has been so much discussion about players taking the knee before games in cricket and in other sports too. Some critics argue against players apparently allying themselves with the more political elements of Black Lives Matter. I wonder what your perspective is.

Michael Holding8:36

Black Lives Matter being a political movement, I don't really care about.

Michael Holding8:41

I care about the three words. Black lives matter. People with black skin, their lives matter. That is what I care about. So all those who are looking for little pieces of thread to try and unravel the entire situation, it's because they do not want change. They cannot give me any other reason for trying to unravel it.

Presenter9:03

Mikey, it's time for some more music. Disc number two. What is it and why are we going to hear it today?

Michael Holding9:08

Well, this one is war. You know, Bob Marley is saying until the color of a man's skin is no more significant than the color of his eyes, he's gonna have war all over the world. This song actually doing a Lauren is Bob Marley taking a speech by

Michael Holding9:25

Imperial Majesty heals Lassi from Ethiopia and turning that speech into his song.

Speaker 49:30

Until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes.

Speaker 49:40

Mr. War

Speaker 49:43

That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is a war.

Speaker 49:56

That until that day

Presenter10:00

Bob Marley and the Whalers and War. Bob Marley, of course, might be synonymous with your home country, your mutual home country. I wonder if you've ever crossed paths?

Michael Holding10:07

Could be.

Michael Holding10:10

Not really. The closest I got to meeting Bob Marley was one day driving along in the halfway tree area. We came up to the clock tower where there were traffic lights. I stopped my vehicle right at the front and a blue BMW came up beside me and I realized it was Bob Marley.

Michael Holding10:27

So he looked at me, I looked at him, I nodded at him and he nodded at me and then the lights changed and we drove off.

Presenter10:36

All right, Mikey. Well, I want to take you back to Jamaica now, obviously, and and to your family there and growing up. Um your mother met your father at church. She was he knit, he was Ralph, but apparently some of her family were quite unhappy with the match between them. Why was that?

Michael Holding10:43

It shows you.

Michael Holding10:50

Yeah, because of the colourism in Jamaica, and colourism stems from racism, because the racism factor makes you believe that the more pale skin you are, the better off you are, the more likely you are to to g get forward in life. And she was a brown skinned Jamaican. She wasn't white, she was mixed.

Michael Holding11:08

My father, black, anyone looks at me, can see how dark I am. So if he and her produced me, you can just imagine how dark he was. And so her family didn't want her to be associated or to be getting married t to a man like that.

Presenter11:22

It sounds like she knew her own mind though.

Michael Holding11:24

Yeah, definitely.

Presenter11:26

I think you've described her as a disciplinarian.

Michael Holding11:28

Very much so. Very much so. Lauren m my mother was a teacher eventually a headmistress. So you know what what that sort of discipline that entails. And she was always adamant about education and learning and bettering yourself. My father never got a piece of paper behind his name. My father was a self-made

Michael Holding11:50

Builder, contractor, architect. But my mother was always a sticker up for discipline.

Speaker 411:53

But

Speaker 411:56

Mm-hmm.

Michael Holding11:56

She never ever meted out the punishment because I was a little bit where I was as a kid. I couldn't sit still. You know, when they were going to cricket, for instance, on a Saturday, they would be cooking everything on a Friday night, ready for Sabina Park on a Saturday. And the Saturday morning, I would disappear, because I did not want to go to cricket at Sabina Park, because those days you just sit in a chair all day, and there's no way I was going to sit in that chair all day. So I would disappear, and when they realized that they can't find me, they would have to go to cricket.

Speaker 411:56

Yeah.

Presenter12:25

I think you've said about your dad that he was the strong and silent type, but woe betide you if you stepped out of line. I am getting slight foreshadows of whispering death there. Did you grow up to take after him a little bit?

Michael Holding12:36

Yes, sir, I I think so. My father was never excitable and never someone to make a lot of noise or to shout about anything. He was quiet, but he did what he he had to do.

Presenter12:47

You were born in nineteen fifty four in Kingston, Mikey, and you were the youngest of four children by quite some margin, I think. You were the baby of the family, and your sister Margery says that you were thoroughly spoiled.

Michael Holding12:53

You would have

Presenter12:59

But not badly behaved.

Michael Holding13:01

Yeah.

Presenter13:01

How fair is that?

Michael Holding13:02

Yeah, they say my mother spoiled me. They say she allowed me to get away with a lot of things that they did not get away with. But I got a few bits of punishment. I got some serious walloping at times.

Presenter13:14

Before we talk more about your early days playing sport, Mikey, I think we'd better have disc number three. What are we going to hear next and why?

Michael Holding13:21

This now is one that I again remember from my youth. And this is my early encounters now with anyone from South Africa, Miriam Makiba. And this is a song that pretty much made her world famous, called Pata Pata.

Speaker 413:36

Butter butter is the name of the dance we do down Johannesburg way.

Speaker 413:46

And everybody starts to move As soon as Pada Patter starts to play

Speaker 413:56

Nazi button, as a full fuga, sati faga, na tea, but some fuga, saty faga, na ti.

Presenter14:06

Miriam McKaba and Pata Pata. So Michael Holding, your first experience of playing cricket was in scrubland behind the house in what you've called the organized chaos of catchy shoeby.

Michael Holding14:17

Catch you so.

Presenter14:18

With coke and tar balls. I'm going to have to ask you to talk me through this a step at a time.

Michael Holding14:23

Well, we couldn't afford to buy leather balls. And the cock and tar ball was a black ball that was painted red just to make it look like a nice red leather ball. But the entire thing about the game

Michael Holding14:37

Lauren is that it is, it taught you all different aspects of cricket. For one, everybody wants to bat.

Speaker 414:42

Yeah.

Michael Holding14:45

The only way you could get to bat is to bowl the batsman that's batting and to hit the stumps. And with stumps we used corrugated iron so that when the ball hit it, it made a loud noise because if you use anything else that did not make a noise, the batsman is, Oh, oh, it didn't hit, you know, it missed and whatever, because there are no umpires.

Michael Holding15:06

If you're in the outfield and a ball goes high in the air, you don't just settle on it and take a nice comfortable catch. Everyone wants to take the catch, so people are pushing your way and fighting to get to the ball to take the catch. So that's where the shubi came from.

Presenter15:21

Okay.

Michael Holding15:21

So like sho like shoving, yeah. Yeah, shoving, what we call shub.

Presenter15:22

Pushing and

Presenter15:28

You progressed pretty quickly, and you were playing informal matches for Melbourne Cricket Club, and they involved curry goat matches. What are they?

Michael Holding15:35

What we used to do is go out into the rural areas on a Sunday. And why they are called curry goat matches is because every time there was a match like that, a goat was killed and that was launched.

Michael Holding15:46

It was such great fun as a like a kid with these with these big men because I'm eleven, twelve, thirteen at the most and these guys are eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I know they consider them big men, you know, upstanding men in the soci in the society.

Presenter16:00

So was that the point that you started dreaming ambitious big dreams?

Michael Holding16:04

No.

Michael Holding16:05

No, I never had any ambitious big dreams. I just played and had fun.

Presenter16:10

Mikey, we've got to make some time for the music. This is number four today. Tell us what we're going to hear next and why you've chosen it.

Michael Holding16:18

Again, this goes back to my youth. A gentleman that used to go to my sister and he had a car, and of course his car had a cassette deck in it, and one of the first cassettes he got was of the Winstons. It's called Colour Him Father.

Speaker 316:33

I love this man and I don't know why Except I'll need his strength until the day that I die.

Speaker 316:42

My mother loves him and I can tell.

Speaker 316:45

By the way she looks at him when he holds my little sister Nell.

Speaker 316:50

I heard her say it just the other day.

Speaker 316:53

But if it hadn't have been for him, she couldn't have found her way out thank God for him father.

Speaker 317:01

I'm gonna color him love

Presenter17:04

Colour him father, the Winstons. Michael Holding, you made your first class debut at eighteen years old. What do you remember about that day?

Michael Holding17:13

Almost 19 though, Lord. I was almost 19. What I remember is being extremely unfit and not knowing. People had started talking about me, you know, because I had done very well at school. Now I'm playing against big men and I think, oh, I've got to charge in. So I charged in, first over, second over, third over, fourth over. By the end of the fourth over, I was walking down the fine leg and I'm saying to myself, please, Lord, don't let him call me for a fifth over.

Michael Holding17:42

I was dying. I was dying. I was out on my feet.

Presenter17:46

It was just two years later though, 1975, you were chosen to join the West Indies team and tour Australia. What do you think Captain Clive Lloyd saw in you?

Michael Holding17:55

Well, I think he saw potential. I don't think he expected me to play in Australia. I think he perhaps said to himself, We'll take this youngster to Australia. 21 years old, best place to go and learn to bowl fast. Good, fast, bouncy pitches. He'll learn, he'll come on on that tour. But it just so happened that they selected me in the first test.

Presenter18:15

You gained playing experience, but sadly, it wasn't a very happy time that tour. There's a press photo of you in tears on the pitch at one point. What went wrong?

Michael Holding18:21

Press for

Michael Holding18:25

Yeah, th that photo would have been Sydney, which would have been the fourth test match. And the first ball after T, I got rid of Ian Redpath. Out, gone. Second ball after T.

Michael Holding18:39

Everyone knows except the umpire. I got rid of Janchapel, caught behind, and the umpire said not out. I couldn't believe it.

Michael Holding18:46

I don't think too many people in the stands could have could believe it either. And because I was so inexperienced, so naive, I went out in the extra cover region, I went down on my knees and I started to cry. The injustice of it. I just could not believe it.

Presenter19:00

If

Presenter19:03

There was also some squabbling within the team, I think. You must have been pretty disillusioned about cricket and your future in it when you got home.

Michael Holding19:10

Well, when I went home I te told my father I wasn't interested in West Indies cricket anymore. I told him if that is West Indies cricket I don't need to be a part of it because we had a lot of squabbling and a lot of infighting in that team.

Presenter19:22

So by the time you got home, you thought, right, I'm going to study and get a proper job, and we could have lost one of the greatest fastbowlers in history to banking or computing. But then Kerry Packer, the Australian businessman, invited you to play World Series cricket. How did that change things for you?

Michael Holding19:40

Changed my life totally. I was at university.

Michael Holding19:45

Remember Lauren nineteen seventy five seventy six.

Michael Holding19:49

I had gone to Australia for about three and a half months, played six Test matches, and I earned six hundred dollars. And this man is now showing me a contract.

Michael Holding20:01

25,000 Australian dollars per year guaranteed for three years. So that blew my mind.

Presenter20:10

Mikey, we will find out what happened next. First, though, we've got to hear your next disc. It's number five today. What have you chosen?

Michael Holding20:17

What's Going On by Marvin Gaye was one of the first protest songs, it was a big hit.

Speaker 420:29

Do you make some love?

Speaker 420:31

I love you.

Speaker 420:34

Oh, pick it left.

Speaker 420:37

Picket size

Speaker 420:39

Furnish me with a brutality Talk to me so you can see what's going on, what's going on

Presenter20:53

Marvin Gaye and what's going on. And Michael Holding, listeners might not be surprised to know that you singing along with every word and have quite a fine voice, I must say.

Michael Holding21:02

No, not at all, not at all. My brother had a fantastic voice.

Presenter21:06

So Mikey, your first overseas tour to England came in nineteen seventy six, and that was the year that the England captain, the South African born Tony Gregg, made comments, which he has subsequently apologised for, about making the West Indian team, quotes, grovel. How did what he said affect you and the team?

Michael Holding21:26

It spurred us on, Lauren. It spurred us tremendously because for that

Michael Holding21:30

comment on that particular word.

Michael Holding21:33

to be coming from a South African.

Michael Holding21:35

During the apartheid era, we didn't take kindly to it. And whenever he came to the crease, the fast bowlers found an extra yard or two of pace. And the other English batsmen didn't like batting with him when he was at the crease. But later on in life, Lauren, and this is what education is about, I got to understand that Tony Gregg was in no way a racist. He just used the wrong term. And again, looking back,

Michael Holding22:03

1976, at the over, the last Test match, when we made over 600 runs in an innings and beat them by lots, when the England team was leaving the field for the last time, and the West Indians started to shout, Grovel, Greggie, grovel. He went down on his hands and knees and crawled the last few steps off the field beyond the ropes and then stood up again to walk inside. Racists do not behave that way.

Presenter22:29

I just want to compliment you on the understatement that you slipped in there. We beat them by lots.

Presenter22:37

Just to unpack that a little bit, uh, in one game in that series, I think you ended up taking fourteen wickets?

Michael Holding22:43

That was the same test, the last test.

Presenter22:45

To the uninitiated, can you explain how formidable that is?

Michael Holding22:50

Well, there are only twenty wickets to be taken in in a Test match, ten in each innings. And I got eight in one innings and six in the other, which of course is a record for the West Indies and, you know, it's not something that you do every day.

Presenter23:02

That's your record and it still stands, right?

Michael Holding23:04

Yes, it still stands as a record for West Indian fastballers.

Presenter23:07

Winning was a huge source of pride for the Caribbean, but I know that on that first tour you also learned how much it meant to the Caribbean diaspora. You played an early practice match against Surrey, but your fans weren't happy that you weren't playing to win.

Michael Holding23:21

Yes, when they r realized that we were not chasing the target, the mood changed immediately and they started to jeer and shout abuse. I am brand new to England, so I am perplexed. I am wondering why are these people behaving like this? But then God Greenwich is the person who said to me, Because God grew up pretty much here in England, and God said to me, Mikey, these guys want us to win every game we play because they feel good about themselves if their team, coming from where they came from,

Michael Holding23:53

can win because they figured if their team could win on the cricket field and be respected, they had a better chance than of being respected off the cricket field because they felt they were not respected in this country. And that's the first inkling I got of it.

Presenter24:08

It's time for some more music, Mikey. What are we going to hear next and why are you taking this track to the island with you?

Michael Holding24:14

Another day in paradise is what we're gonna hear next from Phil Cunnings. And again, it's about people not recognizing the good fortune that they have.

Speaker 424:25

She calls out to the man on the street.

Speaker 424:30

He can see she's been crying

Speaker 424:35

She's got blisters on the soles of her feet

Speaker 424:40

She can't walk, but she's trying.

Speaker 424:44

Uh

Speaker 424:46

Fee twice.

Speaker 424:48

It's another day for you and the entire

Presenter24:54

Phil Collins and another day in paradise. So, Mikey, I want to talk to you about your bowling. Now, I've seen many videos of you. There you are, far off in the distance, and then you turn and you begin this long, graceful run up towards the crease. It earned you the nickname Whispering Death. Why?

Michael Holding25:15

Actually, it's Dickie Bird, the world famous umpire who gave me that name. And I said, Dicky, wh wh what's this whispering death thing?

Michael Holding25:23

It's all my key.

Michael Holding25:25

You know, when I was um piring you started so far back.

Michael Holding25:29

I couldn't hear you coming. I had to keep on looking behind me to see if you were actually running in. But what about this death thing? And I never killed anyone. He said, Yeah, but you could have.

Presenter25:41

And I mean, he wasn't wrong, was he? Cricket was a dangerous sport back then.

Michael Holding25:45

Still is.

Presenter25:45

But the 70s was also an era of minimal protection for banks.

Michael Holding25:49

No protection, n no helmets and the even the pads, Lauren. I remember my first tour to Australia Center size seven-six against those quickies down there. Gone Greenwich, Bibb Richards, Lawrence Rowe, all of them took Clive Lloyd, all of them took bath towels and stuffed down the front of their pads because the equipment wasn't that good then to make sure that when the ball hit the pad it didn't go straight through and hurt them.

Presenter26:08

Wow.

Presenter26:12

And the speeds, you know, the ball could be flying at at ninety miles per hour.

Michael Holding26:16

Yes, yes, yes. It it was pretty quick. Clive Lloyd and myself ended up in hospital at the CM night in Sydney. He got his on his chin, I got mine in my eye.

Presenter26:26

Um

Presenter26:27

Wow, that must have been scary.

Michael Holding26:29

Yes, but we just considered it part of the game, Lauren. You know, fast bowlers, you're gonna have balls whistling past your head. It's up to you to keep your eyes on the ball and to get out of the way.

Presenter26:41

And the Bouncers, for people who aren't so familiar with cricket, they were particularly controversial and they are kind of as the name implies.

Michael Holding26:48

Yes, it's directed at the batsman's body. You know, people will tell you, oh, you shouldn't have intimidation in cricket and in fast bowling. But that is what the bouncer was meant to do: to intimidate, to find out if you have got the strength of character to stand up there and deal with it, Lauren. I never want to hurt someone. What I want to do was intimidate them and to frighten them or for them to play a shot that they were incapable of playing and getting themselves out. So it is a.

Presenter27:15

a game of cat and mouse that you're playing with the Batman in a lot of ways.

Michael Holding27:18

You're playing with the minds. You're playing with the minds a lot.

Presenter27:21

Uh You're known for The Perfect Over against Geoffrey Boycott. Talk me through it. Uh fourteenth of march, nineteen eighty one, Barbados, the Kensington Oval.

Michael Holding27:31

Yes, um Boycott says is the best dough I ever bowled because it was bowled to him.

Michael Holding27:39

It the circumstances were just right. I ran in and bowled from the very first ball as fast as I could and luckily it went where I wanted it to go. And that entire over was pretty much almost perfect. After defeating Boycott, I think four of the first five balls, one hit his glove, fell short of Joel Garnett Gully, and the last one hit the Austin part of the ground. And the entire ground erupted.

Presenter28:06

It's often referred to as one of the greatest moments in cricket. It's been immortalized in books. It's even got a poem written about it. But I I don't think you think it was your best.

Michael Holding28:14

Don't think

Michael Holding28:17

Not really, Lauren. It it you know, people get emotional about things and because it was boycott and because, you know, the packed crowd and the eruption of the crowd and the pictures that were taken and people got carried away with all that. But me personally, I think I bowled better than that on different occasions.

Presenter28:36

You were ready for retirement when it came along in nineteen eighty seven, I think. How difficult was it to decide to step back from the game at the highest level?

Michael Holding28:45

It wasn't difficult at all, Lauren. I was ready for retirement two years before I actually retired.

Presenter28:51

Mikey, we'll find out about the next chapter and you stepping into the commentary box after your seventh choice today. What have you gone for and why?

Michael Holding28:58

And this is a great song and throughout my life I have got to appreciate this more and more and it's that's what friends are for, very important people in your life.

Speaker 429:09

Keep smiling, keep shining. Knowing you can always count me.

Speaker 429:19

What's your

Speaker 429:21

That's what friends are.

Speaker 429:26

For a good time.

Speaker 429:28

And bad times, I'll be on your side forevermore

Speaker 429:37

That's what brains are.

Presenter29:40

That's what Friends Are For. Dion Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight. Michael Holding, your first stint on the radio doing commentary was, I think, for a one day international, the West Indies against Pakistan, nineteen eighty eight. It's a very particular skill set. How long did it take you to get the hang of it?

Michael Holding29:59

It took me quite some time to feel comfortable. I was very nervous. I was very conscious of what I was saying and because

Michael Holding30:08

Irrespective of what people think, English is not my first language when you're growing up in Jamaica with Peter Patois. And I spoke very slowly initially because I wanted to make sure I pronounced every syllable even when I wasn't supposed to be pronouncing syllables.

Speaker 430:25

Yeah.

Michael Holding30:25

But it took me took me a long time to be comfortable and to flow a bit more and to stop worrying about making mistakes.

Presenter30:32

Mikey, throughout your life, your other passion I know has been horses and horse racing. When did that love affair start?

Michael Holding30:38

That started from my youth. When I was a kid, my brother's godmother, who was our next door neighbor, owned the horses. And so he used to go down to the race track with her in the mornings, cutting grass and taking it down there to feed them and that sort of thing. And I got more and more interested in horses and the athleticism of the horses and the fact that you could go to the stables and pet them and that sort of thing. I just kept on growing till I got to the point where I started to own horses when I started to play cricket.

Presenter31:11

What did you love about it?

Michael Holding31:12

I just love being around horses. I love the entire camaraderie in the stables as well, Lauren. I've made a lot of friends in the industries, whether they be trainers, be jockeys, or just grooms.

Presenter31:23

What about when your horse wins? How does that thrill compare to taking a wicket?

Michael Holding31:29

Not just taking a wicket, that is a bigger thrill to me than taking a Fifer in a Test match.

Presenter31:35

What's a Pfiffer?

Michael Holding31:35

It's a Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer means you have taken five wickets and innings, which doesn't happen very often. I only did that ten times in my entire career. I tried to describe it to my wife once and she couldn't understand.

Michael Holding31:46

But believe me, winning a race and going out there and holding on to those reins and leading that horse into the winner's enclosure, that gave me more pleasure than taking a five wicket haul.

Presenter31:58

Well, you've got one more tune to play us before we send you away with your desert island discs. What's your last choice today, Michael Holding?

Michael Holding32:06

This last one again I'm going back to Bob Marley, and again I'm going back to my youth. There was an expression in the Caribbean that we use and in Jamaica in particular. You say I throw me stone.

Michael Holding32:16

Whoever did it leak is them ball out. Meaning whoever the stone hit, that person will cry out. And whoever the cap fits, they will wear it.

Speaker 432:28

Yeah, it's

Speaker 432:32

Where are you?

Speaker 432:35

Yeah.

Speaker 432:39

Where it

Speaker 432:41

Said I throw me corn

Speaker 432:44

I say y'all

Speaker 432:52

Glap clap clap

Speaker 432:54

The club's not in

Speaker 432:57

Song

Presenter32:58

Bob Marley and the Whalers and Who the Cap Fit. So, Mikey, I'm going to send you away to a different island. I am giving you the books to take with you, as well as your discs. You'll have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. You can also take one other book of your choice. What will it be?

Michael Holding33:15

I'm going to take a book which is about Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom.

Presenter33:20

You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Michael Holding33:23

I'm going to take a football. I can't take a cricket bat or a ball because I have no one to play with. I can play football on my own.

Presenter33:31

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves if you were forced to do so?

Michael Holding33:37

The one that means a a lot to me. That's what friends are for. Friends are very important in life.

Presenter33:44

Michael Holding, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Michael Holding33:49

Thanks for having me, Lauren. Thanks for having me for sure. I enjoyed it.

Presenter34:06

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Mikey. And while it is a shame that we can't let him have Jeffrey boycott to bull at on his desert island, hopefully he'll be able to content himself by practicing his footballing skills by himself instead. Sir Jeffrey was actually cast away by Roy Plumley back in 1971, even before he faced Michael Holding's perfect over. And you can also hear other cricketing legends including Ian Botham, Imran Khan and Freddie Flintoff, as well as the umpire Dickie Bird in the Desert Island Discs back catalogue, all on BBC Sounds. Next time my guest will be Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter35:07

Hello, this is Jane Garvey. I'm with my broadcasting friend, Fee Glover. Come in, Fee. Oh, thank you, darling. Thank you. How are you? All right. We do a podcast together called Fortunately. It has been surprisingly successful. And you'd be honestly, you'd be really quite, quite choked with emotion to discover that other people have found us. Some of them have quite enjoyed it. Other people like carping. We welcome all comers. We don't care who you are, where you are, what you do, or what you think. As long as you're prepared to join with us in, well, what do we do, Fee? We kind of unravel, we unburden, we unload. What do we do?

Presenter35:44

We're a self help group of two that other people quite like to witness, and we don't really mind if you laugh with us or at us. You're just welcome aboard a slightly rickety midlife ship which occasionally has guests who are far more successful than us, but we try not to let that get in the way.

Presenter35:59

We'd love you to join in and as Visa's be a part of it. All you have to do if you want to subscribe is pop along to BBC Sounds and search for Fortunately. It could not be more simple than that.