Richard
Cricket Web Staff Member
Age and domestics isn't the big thing - the point is, to do so well as people like Laxman, Ponting, Kallis, Hayden, etc. have on such flat pitches is not a particularly extraordinary achievement.Matt79 said:Not being a world beater before you're 25 doesn't mean you can't be an all time great. There are a few different discussions going on on different threads re the different natures of cricketing systems in different countries etc. Plus, such a distinction discounts the greatness of players like Waugh, and to an extent Ponting, who go away, analyse what isn't working for them and then fix it. It has been commented previously in a variety of media that as much as anything else, for Ponting getting married and achieving a settled and happy personal life coincided with his transition from good player to great player. Does the fact that it took him a few years to get his head right diminish him as a cricketeer, given its now manifest that he succeeded in doing so?
All these batsmen played in the 1990s and very early 2000s - and all were good players without being anything extraordinary. Coincidentally, a great number of players had something of a boom in high scoring around that period.
Dravid, for me, though, does not fit into the same category as he averaged in the high 40s and early 50s between 1996 and 2000, too.
I think the deterioration in standard of bowling and vast increase in bat-friendly pitches have had far more to do with anything than any developments in the careers of said players.