Widely regarded as one of the greatest pace bowlers in cricket history, he was nicknamed "Whispering Death" due to his undramatic but effective bowling style.

His bowling action was renowned for being smooth and extremely fast, and he used his height (192 cm (6 ft 4 in)) to generate large amounts of bounce and zip off the pitch.

He was part of the fearsome West Indian pace bowling battery, together with Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Wayne Daniel, Malcolm Marshall and Sylvester Clarke, that devastated opposing batting line-ups throughout the world in the late seventies and early eighties.

[4] The family was passionate about sport, and only a few years after Michael was born his father enrolled him as a member of Melbourne Cricket Club in Kingston.

Earlier that year the West Indies had defeated Australia in the final of the inaugural World Cup, and the teams were considered to be the best of their day.

[5] Fast bowler Bernard Julien was out of form and his place in the team was given to debutant Michael Holding who opened the bowling with Andy Roberts.

[6] He picked up a groin strain in the second Test and bowled as fast as 97 miles per hour (156 km/h), quicker than Jeff Thomson, Australia's fastest bowler.

[7] According to Wisden in his debut series, Holding "had shown himself to be Roberts' natural opening partner and indeed was timed to be faster than Jeff Thomson, Dennis Lillee and Andy Roberts, and considered that when West Indies captain Clive Lloyd chose to give Julien the new ball rather than Holding it was a mistake that cost the West Indies the match.

Australia won the series 5–1, and though Holding's 10 wickets in 5 matches cost on average more than 60 runs each, Wisden believed that he had performed well enough to establish himself in the side and had the potential to bowl faster still.

The defeat by Australia had left Andy Roberts exhausted, so he was rested for the matches against India and Holding took over as leader of the West Indies bowling attack.

[9][10] The West Indies toured England in 1976, and though Holding was largely unknown in the country, the British press noted his performance in Australia and there was a sense of anticipation about his bowling.

This highly unusual occurrence of both wickets being broken by one throw dumbfounded the umpires, David Constant and Arthur Jepson, who rejected the run-out appeal for unknown reasons.

A shoulder injury sustained towards the end of the 1976 tour of England prevented Holding from joining the West Indies squad to face Pakistan in March 1977.

The negative press surrounding the World Series – players were labelled mercenaries – bred a sense of camaraderie in the West Indies side, which contributed to the team's dominance in the Test arena for years to come.

The final ball simply beat him for speed and Boycott was unable to react at all, being clean bowled to the great delight of the crowd.

[21] In 2009, Rudi Webster said "It is difficult to overestimate how much the players in [the West Indies team led by Clive Lloyd] were admired and idolised on the cricket field.

Prompted by the positive public reaction to his comments, the book expands upon his theme of how institutionalised racism developed historically and how it affects people of colour, and includes contributions from notable sports stars such as Usain Bolt, Thierry Henry, Michael Johnson and Naomi Osaka.

Despite this he was initially supportive of the Stanford 20/20, believing that the tournament funded by Allen Stanford, who had pledged to put large sums of money into domestic West Indies cricket, could revitalize the long time poorly funded domestic Caribbean cricket scene (the on-field fortunes of the West Indies team had declined rapidly from the mid 1990s onwards).

Holding also accused the BCCI for having too much power, and believed they were the main reason for the decline of the West Indies team as they promoted the IPL, and they were dictating the ICC.

He argues that the financial power of the BCCI enables it to dominate the International Cricket Council (ICC), thus undermining the democratic governance of the sport.

Holding has also expressed frustration with the dominance of the Indian Premier League (IPL), asserting that the BCCI’s control over the tournament compromises the governance of world cricket.

In a candid remark, he noted: "I don't think one copy (of his book) will be sold in India, because I have nothing good to say about the BCCI and what they are doing with world cricket."

Holding has long called for more equitable governance of the sport to prevent financial interests from overshadowing its true competitive spirit.

[37][38] In July 2020, during a rain delay in the England v West Indies Test series, Holding was asked on Sky Sports by Ian Ward for his thoughts on the pre-match kneeling of both teams in respect of the Black Lives Matter movement.