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India Burnt Out?

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Regarding India's bowling, the biggest positive for me is Ishant Sharma's improvement over the last year. 12 months back, the pundits were writing him off. Ishant Sharma has had a fine year in test cricket. He is just 26. If he can lead India's attack over the next 4 years, it will be terrific. Yadav, I hope develops as he is a terrific athlete. Varun Aaron has the pace, but does he have the body to last? He is a few steps behind in his development still. If we have 2 out of 3 seamers set though, we will do better than many Indian teams of the past. The third seamer can always be a stock(ish) bowler. We will find our regular spinner in Ashwin or whoever can step up. I can see our bowling improve slowly, thus.
 

Debris

International 12th Man
???

Mid 20s is the prime of a career? These guys aren't Tendulkar ffs. They've barely played 15-20 tests.
Steve Smith is 25. David Warner is 28. Michael Clarke was an established test batsman by 26. Mitchell Marsh is 23 and should be well established in the side by 25 on current pace. Ganguly, Sehwag and Dravid for India were the same. All were firmly established in the side and performing well by mid 20s. You want to seriously considered if a player is any good if they are not playing well in the test side at that age. History is against them. There are exceptions but they are rare.

Players like Chris Rogers are in the Australian side because we lack batting talent, particularly openers. It is a sign of weakness.
 

Debris

International 12th Man
This is factually incorrect.
Dhawan 29
Vijay 30
Pujara 26
Kohli 26
Rehane 26
Sharma 27
Dhoni 33
Shami 24
Yadav 27
Sharma 26
Ashwin 28

What facts did I get wrong? They look mostly mid to late 20s to me.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Michael Clarke's average after 20 tests was 36. Pujara's average is 48 after 26 tests. Virat Kohli's is 42 after 30. Rahane is 26 and just 12 tests old. Vijay has started to come good. I am not sure what you are, Debris.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Debris, the factually incorrect bit Jono was referring to (I think) is that for most test players, early 30s for a bowler and early to mid 30s for batsmen is the prime. That depends on the player's career graph obviously, but generally that's the case for a well groomed career.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Basically most of these players are entering their best phases in the next 12-18 months at the same time. That bodes well.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Other than some seriously amazing ATGs (Sachin, Lara, Warne etc.), batsmen generally peak from between 28-34. Spinners around then too. Depending on when they debut of course.

Agree fast bowlers can peak earlier, but they also need to play a fair amount of games too.

IMO the only players who should be in the peak of their career based on age and general test experience are Dhoni, Vijay and Ishant.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Remember when some said Root was better. Good times.
In seriousness though, was this just after the England/India series? If so it's just the CW way isn't it? If there's one thing this forum is hugely guilty of, it's a short termist approach to ranking current players.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Other than some seriously amazing ATGs (Sachin, Lara, Warne etc.), batsmen generally peak from between 28-34. Spinners around then too. Depending on when they debut of course.

Agree fast bowlers can peak earlier, but they also need to play a fair amount of games too.

IMO the only players who should be in the peak of their career based on age and general test experience are Dhoni, Vijay and Ishant.
Tbf, I am sure it is true for Ishant.
 

Debris

International 12th Man
Michael Clarke's average after 20 tests was 36. Pujara's average is 48 after 26 tests. Virat Kohli's is 42 after 30. Rahane is 26 and just 12 tests old. Vijay has started to come good. I am not sure what you are, Debris.
Well, that is a different argument entirely. You are not arguing they are too young but that they are too inexperienced. I also was not arguing that they are bad players, just that history suggests that you should not expect their form to improve markedly. One or two will get better possibly and others will fade out of the scene but the odds are on the quality of these players remaining about the same as a group. I will leave any judgements as to whether their current form is satisfactory to you.

Leaving aside the snide insult (really? what you are?), I take a realistic look at cricket history and how players develop. This is why I only really expect Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh to improve much. I do not hold out much hope at all for Shaun Marsh, Rogers or Watson to suddenly become great players. Just take a look at the great Indian players of the past and see how they were going by 26.
 

Riggins

International Captain
In seriousness though, was this just after the England/India series? If so it's just the CW way isn't it? If there's one thing this forum is hugely guilty of, it's a short termist approach to ranking current players.
Not me. I still think Marto is the best batsman in the world. Smitty makin a charge tho.
 

OverratedSanity

Request Your Custom Title Now!
I take a realistic look at cricket history and how players develop. This is why I only really expect Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh to improve much. I do not hold out much hope at all for Shaun Marsh, Rogers or Watson to suddenly become great players. Just take a look at the great Indian players of the past and see how they were going by 26.
I don't think any of the great Indian batsmen of the last 20 years apart from Tendulkar were doing too much better at 26 than Kohli, Pujara and Rahane are doing. Dravid was immense pretty much from the get go, but Rahane, Pujara and Kohli all average in the mid-late 40s ffs. They've had brilliant starts to their careers by any standard.
 

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