Holding

KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC):

FORMER WEST Indies fast bowling legend Michael Holding believes the regional side on tour of South African can only avoid being beaten badly if they stick together as a team.

Holding, who played 60 Test matches for West Indies between 1975 and 1987, emphasised the importance of sticking together or being embarrassed.

"What will be more important from the playing of the game in South Africa is how they stick together as a team," Holding told KLAS Sports Radio in an interview. "You can always find out what a team is like when they go away from home and is up against the adversity, when they not doing as well as they would like, if they fragment.

"If they go down there and fragment, the first sign of any opposition or thing not going the away they would like, they are going to get beaten badly. South African is not a place you would want to go and fragment."

The West Indies face South Africa in three Test matches, five one-day internationals, and two Twenty20 before returning home in February.

Bouncier pitches

Holding also believes the West Indies fast bowlers will benefit from the South African pitches.

"They (pitches) will be a lot bouncier and a lot quicker than the pitches we have here in the Caribbean," he said. "The only pitch here in the Caribbean we can really say is quick is Barbados, and it is still not as quick as when we used to play in the 1980s and 1990s.

"The South African soil is hard, and we have some fast bowlers who should exploit these conditions and, hopefully, they will."

Holding captured 249 Test wickets with a career best eight for 92 against England in 1976.