One can only guess that Sammy was unhappy that he bowled one over, conceded four runs, and was then taken off. He has a right to feel gutted. He has no right to belittle his captain on the field.
"We just had a little banter," Holder, doing his best to deflect, said after the match. "We are very good mates, and we just had a little tussle there."
They later posed for an Instagram photo that Freud would have had a field day with. Sammy looks suitably contrite, Holder looks as if he's buying it ... just this once.
The West Indies and internecine warfare are no strangers. It is a remarkable conglomeration of a team that ignores borders in an effort to create a regional pride. The cultural and geographical differences between, say, Guyana and Jamaica are vast, but through most of West Indian cricket history they have been smoothed over and, for long periods of time, celebrated. So it's probably no biggie to see a St Lucian, Sammy, having a crack at his younger Bajan captain, even if it made for a few uncomfortable television moments.
But here's the thing: as petty as the insubordination was, it at least demonstrated that the West Indies care. And that alone should disabuse New Zealanders of the notion they need only turn up to Wellington to book a ticket to the semifinals.
The West Indies have spent large chunks of this tournament looking as if cricket was ruining an otherwise splendid holiday.
They were turned over by Ireland in Nelson, before righting themselves against Pakistan and Zimbabwe - the latter thanks to a double-ton from the enigmatic Chris Gayle.
They were pitiful beyond description against South Africa and only marginally better against India, before their Napier hijinks. Even then they had to wait and see if Pakistan beat Ireland before they checked into their Wellington hotel.
If you had to sum up the West Indies you'd say their batting is fickle, their seam bowling led by Jerome Taylor is strong against weak batting and weak against strong batting, and their fielding is patchy.
By rights they shouldn't stand a chance. But they do. It's knockout cricket and they're playing a team with a massive weight of hometown expectation who, through circumstance rather than bad management, haven't quite been able to get their batting game together.
It sounds like a bad joke, but a fired up West Indies team, a team with a skipper who is showing a bit of bite, might not be the pushover New Zealand were looking for.
If they needed further proof, they could ask the 1996 South Africans.
West Indies' path to the quarter-final
• Lost to Ireland by 4 wickets, Nelson
• Beat Pakistan by 150 runs, Christchurch
• Beat Zimbabwe by 73 runs (D/L), Canberra
• Lost to South Africa by 257 runs, Sydney
• Lost to India by 4 wickets, Perth
• Beat UAE by 6 wickets, Napier
