Quote:
Originally Posted by Maranello  Ermm..yes! The two are completely unrelated; I would argue there's no correlation, let alone a causal relationship. Asif was a genuine world-class prospect long before he played any Twenty20 cricket; in any case, his involvement in T20 has been minimal, with poor results. Ishant Sharma played his first T20 matches after his Test debut. Similarly, Johnson and Steyn have their reputations based on their performance, seen in first-class and then Test cricket. All these good young quicks" you talk about have not benefited from T20 - their T20 exposure has been minimal, and instead of augmenting their reputations, it has even harmed them to limited extent. |
You certainly raise some good points (especially about Ishant Sharma
) but nevertheless, I do think that T20 will cause bowlers to be more accurate. Umar Gul and RP Singh demonstated the benefits of accuracy in the World T20 last year, and contrary to fears, spinners haven't been made totally reduntant either.
As a matter of interest, I checked the T20 records of some of these bowlers and came up with the following:
Asif- 9 matches, 12 wickets, average 22.4, ER 7.7, BB 4-18.
Johnson- 7 matches, 10 wickets, average 17.2, ER 6.4, BB 3-22.
Steyn- 2 matches, 5 wickets, average 5.2, ER 3.7, BB 4-9.
Arguably the three most promising up-and-coming Test pace bowlers in the world, two of whom have very impressive records over a significant number of games, the third (Steyn) making a very good start, going at under 4 despite being the fastest of the three.