Today we have a treat for our readers as we are bringing back the best performances articles about our favorite cricket legends and today we will be talking about 3 of them in 3 separate articles and these are some of the greats of the 1980s and one is from the modern era. They played for the West Indies and everyone loved watching them do their thing on the cricket pitch. And the first one that we will talk about is one of the deadliest fast bowlers to ever play the game and the name is Michael Holding. He along with Malcolm Marshall were the deadly duo. Let’s look at the Records of this great fast bowler below.
Michael Holding played international cricket for the West Indies from 1975-1987 that means 12 years at the very top of international cricket. He played 60 Test Matches for West Indies and In those matches he picked 249 Test Wickets at an average of 23.69 with 13 Five wicket hauls and 2 times he has been 10 wickets in a test match. He has also played 102 ODIs for West Indies and he has got 142 ODI wickets at an average of 21.37 with 1 Five wicket haul. Let’s look at the Top 5 Best Performances of Michael Holding below.
4/82 and 3/35 vs India (1976)
This match was after that famous test match where India chased down more than 400 runs and Clive Lloyd decided that from now on he will play 4 fast bowlers and Michael Holding wrecked havoc in this match as he took 4 wickets in the first innings for 82 runs and India were only able to score a touch above 300. Then in the 3rd innings of the test match he again got 3 important wickets by giving away just 35 runs and West Indies won this match by 10 wickets. It was a dominating performance by Michael Holding.
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5/17 vs England (1976)
This was the second 5 wicket haul in the test career of Michael Holding but the first one that led to a great win for West Indies so this performance features on this list. West Indies batted first and only made 211 runs but when England came out to bat Michael Holding destroyed the English batting line-up and took 5 wickets for only 17 runs in 14.5 overs and this was a lethal spell of fast bowling by the great. West Indies won the match by 425 runs. Michael Holding had established himself as one of the best in the world.
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8/92 and 6/57 vs England (1976)
I was looking for a performance from a different year but this one cannot be ignored at any cost as not only is it the best match figures for Michael Holding but also one of the best fast bowling performances in a test match. England were batting in the second innings of this match and only Michael Holding looked like taking wickets and he got 8 out of the 10 by giving away 92 runs in 33 overs of hostile fast bowling and he was not done for the match as in the fourth Innings he again was on fire as England were bowled out cheaply and Michael Holding again bowled 20.4 overs of great fast bowling and he got 6 Wickets for 57 runs and was the biggest match winner for West Indies in this test match. He got a total of 14 wickets in this match.
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5/72 and 3/70 vs Australia (1982)
This is the 4th performance on this list and this one came in 1982 against Australia and Michael Holding showed that he can get wickets in any condition against any opponent. In the first innings Australia were batting and Michael Holding bowled 25 overs and he got 5 Wickets for his hard work and he gave away 72 runs. He did not stop there as in the 3rd innings he again stepped up for West Indies and picked up 3 important wickets in 29 overs meaning he bowled 54 overs In this test match and got 8 wickets and West Indies won this match by 5 wickets.
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5/26 vs Australia (1985)
This is the best ODI bowling performance in the career of Michael Holding and it came against Australia and he was absolutely sensational and he bowled 10 overs for just 26 runs and got 5 Wickets of the great Australian batting order and he restricted Australia to 178 runs in 50 overs and he again showed why he is the best in the world. West Indies won this match by 7 wickets.
Also Read: Top 5 Best Bowling performances of Malcolm Marshall
