Yeah this makes sense to me. An 18 year old with few flaws to their game is streets ahead of a 25 year old who has only just gotten their act together because the 18 year old has a 7 year head start on being a complete player, so they're going to turn up at the top level earlier and start scoring runs or taking wickets earlier.
To me, this is sort of true and sort of not. I'll admit I refuse to believe some people will never be X, Y or Z because I have to but I think I have a good argument to back it up. When you get a bunch of beginners to play a sport or build a house or whatever, some are just so much faster on the uptake than others. Some people get something after 3 goes. Others take 30. Mark Richardson was a left arm spinner and piddly tailender. He's one of NZs best opening batsmen. Shane Bond was a dobber. One of the best quicks. Craig Cumming a Cantabrian childhood prodigy. No more than a domestic stalwart. Ryan Harris was in the Bond boat, and now he's the number two fast bowler in the world. It would have been very easy for Richardson, Bond and Harris to settle for their lot and believe they didn't have the ability to change, because that's the narrative we get fed in every endeavour you can name. Sportsmen, poets, artists, mathematicians and more are almost predestined to be what they are. If that was true though, why do so many buck the trend?
Don't get me wrong, I'm in no doubt every person has a leg up over others in a few areas due to genetics or whatever but the slow and unfashionable road works too. I suspect it just requires a passionate and committed person to have the right mix of self awareness and delusion.
Yeah this is fair.
I really wish Lord Colin chose to be a batsman earlier, and not a club cricket medium pacer. Incidentally Colin Munro has had to improve bucketloads to get to where he is now from where he was. He only looks like a raw kid because where he came from was even further back. He's an interesting case because he always had the ability become a good batsman fast but never realised what he was until very late.
It's really really hard to change habits though, and is probably too late for him and this is where I'll revise a few of my ideas from our previous yarns Cane. I think if Colin Munro decided to build himself a good technique at 10 years old he would be a good player today, or have given himself the best chance to be one anyway. When you've been doing something, anything, one way your entire life though it becomes instinctual and at the top level you don't have time to consciously think about what you're doing and to make things even harder, when you're in the moment and the adrenaline is flowing and you can't really think straight your body will do what it knows and not what you're retraining it to do. This is why I have massive respect for Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, Steve Smith, Phil Hughes and anyone who is brave enough to make those changes after years of being a different batsman and while still competing at the top level. At the risk of sounding like Justin Langer, you can't see ball, think, then hit ball. You don't have time. You have to see the ball and hit the ball and while you wanted to hit it one way your body has taken over and tried to hit it the normal way.
Very funny ****.......