It's not an even money gamble though, is it? The value of having Shane Warne's career for for 140 matches is far greater than the cost of having Bryce McGain for 10 matches.
There's a few things i could say about those players- that selecting Flintoff early in his career was a horrible decision that should never be wheeled out in defence of selectorial methods, that Vaughan has flattered to deceive for the majority of his test career too and happened to chance upon his best form (and luck) at the right time, that S Jones's one series of quality isn't rightly enough to reach a conclusion on.
Think that's a fair point, yeah. It comes into play when you have a choice like Chris Rogers vs. Phil Hughes to open in South Africa- if you pick Hughes and it comes off, you could well be looking at a top-class international opener for 20 years.
Cricket isn't played in stasis by robots tho. Whatever reason Jones was selected for initially (pace and movement, one suspects), I think I can say without too much fear of contradiction he was the best man for the job in 2005, so one must give credit there. &, more broadly, good selecting is exactly about specific examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating and all that. A player's performance once selected determines whether it's a good call or not. It is nice to see some consistency in thinking tho, which has been sadly lacking in our selections of late.
Of course, this is absolutely 100% true. The point I tend to make is that people are far too quick to recognise this when it isn't the case.
Far too many selectors (and supporters of this way of going about things) take this attitude and it's why such a massive number of selectorial errors are made.
What strikes me every single time i look at those tables is how much better overseas players do in England than English ones.
Yup - not a poker player myself by a long chalque, but that's exactly what I always say about selection. A good selection is a selection made with things going for it, not a selection that pays-off; a bad selection is a selection made with nothing going for it, not one that doesn't pay-off.
This post just illustrates all that is wrong with the "taking a punt is worth doing" mantra. The assumption is made that if a punt wasn't taken on Shane Warne in 1991/92 - a punt which failed to pay-off - then Warne would never have played Test cricket. This notion is, quite simply, absurd. Warne was a class bowler who, had he not been picked when he first was, would, when he became good enough, have put in the performances and demanded his Test selection.
That, of course, is due in no small part to the fact that overseas players are more often than not from the higher reaches of quality. If you put some average Australian, South African and Kiwi domestic cricketers into English cricket you'd find them doing about the same as the Steve Stubbingses, Robbie Josephs and Mark Wallaces.
Yep, this
Was thinking along the same lines myself. Staying on bowlers, Stuart Clark had an FC average the wrong side of 30 when he was selected, IIRC, while the selectors also stuck with Johnson despite a pretty average start to his Test career.
The extent is pretty severe though. You look at the top five run-scorers in the list Brumby provided and they're Stephen Moore, Chris Rogers, Murray Goodwin, Hylton Ackerman and Jacques Rudolph. Solid players though they are, it's a bit grim for English cricket that there's not a single Englishman who can outscore any of them in England. Hell, they're even nicking players from Ireland now.
Its not always a punt. You dont have to look at just the bowling average to always know how well someone has bowled or batted. I am not talking of this particular instance of Holding but in general. You can see immense talent and yet the initial returns do not translate well in stats and also vice-versa.
Pakistan do deserve credit for taking punts since country's 4 greatest cricketers (Imran, Javiad, Wasim, Waqar) were all punts to a large degree.Wasim has to be the one of the best examples of taking punts as he was called for a training camp after Miandad & Haseeb Ahsan saw him bowling in a street game, Imran only met him once the punt had been taken.
He was replaced by Mark Waugh in 1990/91, against England - well after he had the bumper tour of England in 1989.
They took a punt on those two quicks in the recent test series against Sri Lanka. Neither of whom looked anywhere near ready.
Sohail was not a punt he was the highest wicket taker in the previous domestic season, Talha was a punt but still hard to judge after one game not all punts do well in first game infact punts are always a great risk for every Waqar Younis there will be 3 Hassan Raza's