You're right in as far as that comment goes, but the difficulty with any comparison of this nature is that players aren't the same at the same age or after the same number of tests played.
Some players (Tendulkar, Harvey to name but two) come into test cricket as teenagers and flourish straight away. Others (like Steve Waugh, Hayden) get thrown in early, don't do well, and come back later as better players. Still others (Hussey) don't even get a chance at all until much later, by which time they know their games backwards from having played FC cricket for years.
Steve Waugh at 22 wasn't anywhere near the player he was later in his career. He said himself that when he was called in, he just wasn't ready. Doesn't mean he wasn't a great player when he retired, it just means he became a great palyer later.
If you're going to campare Tendulkar's stats in the 90s to Pontings, why can't you compare them this decade? There seems to be a belief held by many on this site (not saying your good self btw) that if a player didn't do well in the 90s but has done well this decade, they are automatically an inferior player to someone who did well in the 90s. That can be true, but is not automatically true, because it ignores the fact that players improve or decline, and they do so at different stages of their careers.
People say, eg, Ponting or Hayden didn't do as well in the 90s and the reason they do well now is because the bowling now is crap. But comments like that ignore the fact that Hayden played all of 12 tests up to Jan 2001, and at no time was he considered to have been a certain starter in the side. Now, anyone who watched Hayden in his early tests could tell he had limitations, many of which he's gotten rid of now, but what clearly shone through was the bloke didn't really believe in himself at all. How some posters can use a sample of 12 tests taken over 7 or 8 years to say a bloke's an inferior player, when the same bloke has now played nearly 100 and averages over 50 seems ridiculous. If he'd played 30-40 tests in the same period, I could grant the argument some weight.
Likewise, Ponting's test average to 1 Jan 2000 was 44.5 - hardly a huge failure on his part. Dravid's to that point was about 48 or 49. Both those guys averages have exploded this decade, but you can't just say it's because the bowling's crap. It can be a factor, but Ponting's average this decade is over 60 - nearly a 20 point improvement. I'd think that's got far more to do with the fella coming into his prime than it has to do with bowlers suddenly doing the equivalent of bowling underarm to him. Certainly though, Tendulkar in the 90s was a far superior player than Ponting was. He and Lara were clearly the dominant batsmen of that decade, along with Waugh. The same, though, can be said for Ponting, Kallis & Dravid this decade.
