West Indies captain Jason Holder is "very, very confident" of his team's victory should the planned tour of England this summer goes ahead. The Calypso Kings have a lot to "make amends" in UK, having not won there since 1988 when Sir Vivian Richards' men dominated the hosts 4-0 in a five-Test series.
Holder's comments came even as a growing threat of uncertainty looms large over the three-match Test series scheduled for June because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"Yes, very, very confident," ESPNcricinfo quoted Holder as saying. "This series will be tougher than the one in the Caribbean because we are obviously going in their backyard. England are very, very good team in their backyard. Even although we beat them in the last series I'll still England will start as favourites."
A high-spirited, successful run-chase in Headingley led by Shai Hope, Kraigg Brathwaite became the main talking point of West Indies' last trip in 2017, especially since it was its first win on English soil for 17 years, but either side of that, the visitors were outclassed at Edgbaston and Lord's.
"I am looking forward to it personally," Holder said. "You've got guys like Kraigg Brathwaite who has played county cricket as well and international cricket there. Shai [Hope] has played enough international cricket and did really well as well. So we have some guys going back there with a vengeance."
"If you speak to a lot of guys who were on that tour in 2017 everybody will say they can't wait to go back and probably just make amends for what would've happened in 2017."
"We believed personally in our abilities, it is just a matter of understanding the conditions and now that we've had that experience I should only hope that we should be able to then put into practice and make a better show than we did last time."
Holder is also hopeful of having a fully-fit pace battery up his sleeves for the marquee tour, including the likes of Kemar Roach, Alzarri Joseph and Shannon Gabriel, who underwent ankle surgery in November last year and has been in rehab since then.
"I've spoken to Shannon personally a few times over the last couple of months. He is confident that he will be ready for the England tour," the skipper said. "Obviously, he hasn't had the chance to play any cricket and he's just trying to get himself back to a reasonable level to get back on the field."
"I've said to him and to the management staff as well - I don't think we should be pushing him to force him to play cricket before England," Holder added. "We just need to be very, very patient with him. He's been a senior member of our team for a number of years and I would think that we would express that luxury to him to give him as much time as he needs to recover and make sure his recovery process is carried out properly before rushing him back onto the park."
(Inputs from ESPNcricinfo)
