It just occurred to me that, with the West Indies facing Sri Lanka tomorrow in the Cricket World Cup, I should get a move on posting another of those old cricket articles I promised I would while my home team’s still in the tournament.

This profile of Michael Holding, which appeared in Caribbean Beat in January 2000, is one of the first pieces I ever wrote on cricket, and it remains one of my favourites out of all the things I’ve published. I recall transcribing the long interview I did with Michael in Jamaica and feeling about for a structure that would permit me to use more of his distinctive voice than would normally be acceptable in a profile. I eventually found that structure in a 1999 Rolling Stone profile of another former athletic star — Bill Bradley, who was making a bid for the US presidency that year.

Holding happens one of my favourite people in cricket, and not for just the reasons he’s one of many women’s favourite people in cricket. You’ll want to bear in mind, however, that this piece was written at the end of 1999 and that many aspects of the subject’s life, and of the cricketing establishment, have changed since then.

(Caribbean Beat doesn’t seem to have got around to making material from their 2000 archives available as yet, but those who insist on seeing the piece in its original form can download the cruddy-looking pdf I cobbled together from bad page scans via this link).