30 before 30 definitely on the money.
He's so unselfish as well. Not at all someone who you an claim cares overmuch about personal milestones and stats, he's really all about the team and winning. Won't hesitate to throw his wicket away looking for quick runs, and often just gets out when Aus have almost won.
Yep. Once he's there he can set his sights on Handscomb.
With successful players how can we tell someone's efforts are less about the milestones and more about the team? In both cases they bat/bowl for as long as they can for the most runs/wickets.
Plus playing for the team = more likely to keep being selected = more opportunities to score more runs/take more wickets for yourself
Quite easily IMO. In ODIs especially he always seems to throw his wicket away with the scores 2-200 or something like that looking for the maximum possible score where many players would continue to go at a run a ball or just under until the last few overs. Also his declaration batting in Tests can be hard to watch when he sacrifices himself for seemingly little gain, when he could just keep going and get a not out.
He does it hitting out a bit, but most batsmen do.
I believe the myth of Shiv and Kallis and the like being 'selfish' is more down to them lacking a certain amount of nous/match awareness/adaptability when they are batting rather than actually being selfish. Would like some actual examples too to test that. I remember Shiv failing to shield the tail and choosing to bat at 5/6 vs higher up like at 3 being used as arguments against him for this.
No I'm far too lazy for that
I can cop this when a player is new to a team or inexperienced in general, not when you've played 100 plus tests. You don't get to play that many games at that level unless you have some game sense to you.
But maybe it's the opposite. Maybe they coasted by so far and long into their career based on pure skill and weight of runs that, when these situations presented themselves, they actually hadn't developed the requisite skills/mentality to deal with them, because they never really had to.
Well Boycott is quite openly selfish. Kallis and Shiv to me always seemed to just go in a trance and bat meditatively. I can see how trying to snap out of that trance and try to bat in a more dynamic, situation-based manner could just be a skill they never developed.
