That's one reason why FC debuts tend to come a bit later for Australian players, along with the obvious strength of the competition relative to other nations.
That is talking with today's OZ cricket in the eye. Not in the past.
If you look at the players who are given huge praise by coaches and so on in their teens in recent years, like Ponting, Henriques etc, that's the way they usually go about it.
Ultimately, its up to the players themselves and their parents - if they deem homeschooling is worthwhile, its gonna happen. Anyways, this discussion has veered off too much in the wrong direction.
I think just about the only things we can base this hypothetical scenarios are :
1. Was Tendulkar good enough to play FC cricket in OZ when he actually started playing FC cricket ?
2. Was Tendulkar good enough to debut for OZ Test team at the age of 17-18 ?
3. Would he have had the required opening in the middle order of OZ ?
The answer to all those questions are very emphatically yes.
As i said- when a player has a 50+ test batting average before he is old enough to even vote in some places (ie, 21), especially in a day and age where only three others- all alltime great and established superstars in the twilight of their careers- averaged 50+, it is a fairly safe bet to say he'd have cracked it in any test team by his 18th birthday just on merit.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, OZ batting was one of the stronger ones but not really run-away strongest batting lineup out there. The middle order was pretty open, with Boone and Border being the only certainties. Steve Waugh traded places on and off, Mark Waugh was tried and discarded a few times, Langer and Martyn tried and promptly bombed.
So it was not even a question of just one slot in the middle order open to competition for ALL the national candidates. The Aussie middle order was very much wide open and open to change.
OZ were also in the business of handing out debuts fairly young to players back then - Steve Waugh debuted as a FC cricketer at the age of 19 and Test cricket at the age of 20 for example and he was nowhere the teen/pre-teen prodigy Tendulkar was.
As such, based on far superior performances through the teens and pre teens, i dont see what would've stood in his path at all.
He is an exception case to most bread and butter decisions as he was so prodigious from such a fine age. And as such, you cannot find any other 20 year old with a 50+ average and 2500 runs in Test cricket, let alone in a day and age where only three others were achieving this. Atmost a 2 year delay could be justified because of superior competition for spots or a more structured system- no more than that and saying he would've debuted as a 20-21 year old is just downright ludicrous and totally ignorant of Tendulkar's prodigious talent- a monicker that none of the batsmen before or after him ( except for Sobers) deserves as much as he does.
