Bridgetown, Barbados, March 31 – (www.bcacricket.org) - Talented Barbados teenaged all-rounder Jason Holder, who stood out with the ball as a fast bowler for West Indies at the recent ICC Youth World Cup in New Zealand, has now caught the eye of former England team coach Peter Moores as well.

Moores, who was in Barbados as Head coach of Lancashire County Club for a two-week pre-season tour, said he was impressed with the bowling of six-footer Holder during the six-team Twenty20 championship at Kensington Oval. It featured four English County sides – Lancashire, Yorkshire, Essex and Derbyshire – along with a Barbados Select and Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) Division 1 champions, University of West Indies (UWI).

Lancashire grabbed the T20 championship with a 52-run win over UWI in the final. They also won a Trophy for the long-standing War of Roses match against Yorkshire by way of first innings lead in the two-day battle at 3Ws Oval last weekend.

Speaking in an exclusive interview during live ball-by-ball Internet radio commentaries by Caritech Media Solutions (CMS) on the final day of the War of Roses match on Saturday, Moores praised the 18-year-old Holder, saying he has “great bounce, nice rhythm, his own action and plenty of talent”.

Holder, who is also the national Under-19 team captain, played for Barbados Select in the T20 championship.

“I’ll tell you who did impress me. The tall, young lad, named Holder. He bowled really well, a bit of bounce and also like he loved it. He was keen and buzzing and he bowled very well,” Moores said in the wide-ranging interview with veteran cricket journalist and commentator Keith Holder.

“He has got to fill out yet because he is only a young man but he has great bounce, nice rhythm and he’s got his own action.

“But he got the ball to do a little bit and he bowled intelligently. You know, Twenty20 cricket, though it’s an aggressive form of the game, you’ve got to think on your feet. He did that. He struggled a little bit at the end when he had to alter things at the death of the innings but he will learn that quickly and he looks like a young man who really wants to move on in the game. He’s got plenty of talent,” Moores asserted.

When told that Holder considered himself to be a batting all-rounder, Moores said top England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff also feels the same about himself.

“Well, I’ll tell you that much with Andrew Flintoff. He always calls himself a batting all-rounder, loves his batting but he still bowls it at 90 miles an hour, so he (Holder) can do both and good luck to him.

“Good luck to him if he starts doing the things that Fred (Flintoff) did in international cricket,” Moores said.

The 6ft, 6in Holder is a right-arm bowler and lower order batsman, who made his first-class debut against Guyana in Georgetown in 2009. He was the Barbados Under-19 team captain last season and is also skipper of Guardian General Barbados Youth in the BCA domestic competitions.

In the ICC Youth World Cup in New Zealand, Holder was the third highest wicket-taker with 12 scalps at an average of 17.75 and an economy rate of 4.03, helping West Indies to finish third. His best figures were five for 19.

Moores is a former first-class player, who kept wicket in his 231-match career. He played for English County clubs Sussex and Worcestershire as well as for Orange Free State in South Africa, finishing with 502 catches and 44 stumpings, apart from amassing 7 351 runs including seven centuries.

The 47-year-old Moores succeeded Duncan Fletcher as England coach in April 2007 and held the position until January 2009 before taking up his appointment as Lancashire’s Head coach a month later.