Who's next

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

So the 24 year old would be younger than the 23 year old Ian Bell?

Why let facts get in the way of a good argument... any way uptil that part Leafy was spot on.

Especially about hand eye co-ordination. Just after the winter tour I heard a rumour that the selectors believd that Thorpe's "eye" had gone, what that simply meant was that he may still be physically able to play the game, but when it came to playing at the heighest level he may not have been able to cut it much longer.

[Notts Exile]

You're right FF, Leafy was making sone good points. However he was also trying to claim that the Aussies already have more youngsters in their side than we do, which is wrong.

[Leafy Seadragon]

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

So the 24 year old would be younger than the 23 year old Ian Bell?

In spirit maybe? Admit that I missed Bell (I foolishly went through the Crincinfo list of England contracted players). Although Anderson is on that list and is also only 23 and may play the last test. The point I was making was that Australia does have some useful young playeers. Someone raised the question "where is the next generation?" and I think used 25 years as a benchmark for young up and coming players. I was merely making the point that the best of these players are not over the horizon, but in some cases, already in the team or squad.

I wouldn't begin to pretend that I know enough about England's up and coming young players to suggest that Oz has a smaller, larger or similar young talent pool. The comment regarding this at the end of my earlier post had a tongue firmly planted in my cheek. The comment re the England team falls a bit flat given Bell's age, but was attempting to put some perspective into the discussion. Given that I was on the Oz board, I assumed that this would be picked up by those reading.

The talk of the aging Oz team is accurate to a degree. The succession plans have actually been put in place for some time. The issue is that the current crop of players have been exceptionaland so have carried on longer than normal. Additionally, Gillespie, who was seen as the medium term lead bowler has collapsed, so there will be a gap between the current team and the next generation. Having said that, Punter is only 30. If McGrath and Warne do stay with the team until 2007, I don't see major dramas until then. Replacing two of the greatest bowlers of all time is not straightforward for anybody and the team will obviously dip after that. How far and how quickly they bounce back will be pivotal. The talent is there to suggest the Aussies may be able to maintain a strong team, but talent is potential with no guarantees attached

[acker]

Cricket is a game built on

Batting
reaction time
muscular power
hand/eye coordination

Bowling
muscular power
stamina
muscular recovery

Unfortunately age diminishes competitive ability in both.
And the Australian team has to much age.

[Beny]

Batting
reaction time- only a miniscule ammount
muscular power
hand/eye coordination

Bowling
muscular power
stamina
muscular recovery

Only the ones I've highlighted are at all affected by age (at least when a person is under 40)... How old was the govenator last time you checked- I would'nt want to pick a fight.

Australia's fast bowlers achived what is expected of an AFL footballer in the Beep test. They are highly fit and well looked after. They might get a bit sore aftarwards but physicaly they can still achive what they were doing 5 years ago. (except for Warne ofcourse due to his shoulder being shot)

[Leafy Seadragon]

I think that this is a tad of an oversimplification. My understanding is that both reaction time and hand-eye coordination is in relatively steady decline from mid-20s onwards, with many experienced players accommodating this drift through ever refined technique and mental strength. This skill is critical to batsmen, and when the rest of the package can no longer accommodate the decreasing hand-eye coordination, the batsmen's skills deteriorate rapidly. Power as you rightly point out generally plateaus through until the late 30s, which is presumably why some boxers hold their careers together this long.

In various sports a few players are able to maintain their careers until the magic 40 because they either gain more in smarts (not evident in this Oz team), had a lot more to start with (more than most, but not more than the greats), play a sport with limited confines (or at least easily managed ones such as baseball) or don't degenerate as quickly as most (hard to judge). Its hard to imagine that these will be consistent for all of the Aussie batsmen.

If bowling was all about muscular strength, recovery and stamina, then an awful lot of bowlers would never had made the grade. Rythm needs to feature in there, something harder to maintain as the body shrinks and stretches in different directions at the same time. Repetitive impact sports have also been identified by Harvard as those which offer the greatest risk of age related performance degradation. The front foot and knee of any bowler would surely fall into this category.

The beep test belovedly referred to by those who point to the fitness of the players is one test of fitness. Now, if all the bowlers had to do was run backwards and forwards. Pity about all that swinging arms and legs and propelling a ball. I don't remember this being part of the beep test that I did (thank god, because the one I did nearly killed me without that additional stuff).

[Leafy Seadragon]

Originally Posted by Goatman

His decision to sit on his **** and pick his nose rather that upping sticks and getting himself off to play for another state hardly indicates the kind of hunger for success that is the hall mark of every great sportsman

What an incredible oversimplification of the complexities that make up personal decisions. Maybe he didn't pick up and move to another State. Maybe that had something to do with the 'remarkably indolent' Thornley taking care of his sick mother and her farm singlehandedly. Maybe him doing that, whilst undertaking a 500km round trip to three times a week for training and to play may reflect his hunger. To you, it may reflect a willingness to sit on his **** as you so eloquently put it and pick his nose. Then again, you obviously know his circumstances so well to be able to sit in judgment.

Originally Posted by Goatman

You are talking someone who left his home country and went to one with a different currency, a different culture and a different language and took his then-pregnant wife with him in order to take the opportunities life was offering with both hands, which (for the record) was when I was 24 - younger than the remarkably indolent Thorneley

Good on you and I do mean that. I'm glad it worked out. As I hope Thornley's work out for him.

Originally Posted by Goatman

If you expect me to have sympathy with some poor little Lord Fauntleroy who is too scared to leave Mummy and move to a different part of the same country you are living in false hope

I don't expect sympathy for him. Hey, if he had left his sick Mummy to die alone on the farm, you probably could have even sent him a telegram to tell him telling him to lift his game. Would have been a great help and I'm sure appreciated.

Originally Posted by Goatman

what I will always do when someone tells me that some lad who has played 6 first class games will be the next big thing, where ever they come from and whenever I am being told. I am curling my lip and pointing out that one swallow does not make summer

As I think do most (possibly without the lip curl). I'm not sure which post got up your nose, because many of the responses (including mine) were trying to provide some context

Originally Posted by Goatman

As for whether either nation has good or poor resources for the future, as Beny points out himself, there is only one answer possible - "we'll have to wait and see". This is a bit of an exercise in baseless, daft arm-waving to be perfectly honest....

As has everyone, so why the rant? Wrong side of bed?

ps. I have no idea whether Thornley has a sick mother, a farm or actually lives at the ground with his parents. I suspect neither do you. I am unwilling to sit in judgement without any real context...

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Leafy Seadragon

I think that this is a tad of an oversimplification. My understanding is that both reaction time and hand-eye coordination is in relatively steady decline from mid-20s onwards, with many experienced players accommodating this drift through ever refined technique and mental strength.

I think it was Gary Linekar that said, recently, that soccor fans' obsession with reaction time and pace (and with players losing it as they get older) is misguided: he reckoned that what gave you the space you needed was actually anticipation... which comes with experience.. and that no pacy youth can close down an aging pro if the latter routinely manages to move first.

The problem with getting older in most sport is not so much playing... as getting up the next day and playing again. Doesn't strike me as an issue in cricket though.. because bowlers very rarely have to keep going for much more than a day before a huge break.... and batsmen hardly do anything anyway (not compared with, say, tennis players: there's more energy expended fielding than at the crease).

Thing with cricket is surely that every player loses it periodically. That's not an age thing: ask Anderson. I'm just not sure many have the fight to keep on overcoming those set-backs indefinitely..

[Paoli]

...And Stamina would decrease...Dizzy Gillespie, despite all of his injuries, it was only a matter of time before it caught up with him. Steaming in at 130kmh for 10 years surely can't leave you in brilliant stead for the rest of your career.

As for the physio, I think it's good that we are destroying the old notion of cricket being either a "fat person's sport" or a "lazy man's game"; due to Darren Lehmann, Greg Ritchie, Tea Breaks and Lunch breaks. I think Alcott has done a very good job but have a look at Shane Warne; living proof that you don't need a massive beep test score to become a great sportsman. I struggle in the high eights/early nines of the beep test, despite being no great sportsperson. For a batsman, sprinting is the key. For a bowler, endurance is obviously the key; but blokes like Brett Lee are genuinely fast and I wouldn't want to change that even if it meant he'd be bowling an extra five overs a day.

[Beny]

The beep test belovedly referred to by those who point to the fitness of the players is one test of fitness. Now, if all the bowlers had to do was run backwards and forwards. Pity about all that swinging arms and legs and propelling a ball. I don't remember this being part of the beep test that I did (thank god, because the one I did nearly killed me without that additional stuff).

Matty Hayden can do a killer bench press too!

For a batsman, sprinting is the key. For a bowler, endurance is obviously the key;

Not really... From my admitadly novice understanding of fitness, because you are not running for long enough the aerobic system does not take over (is there anybody who can verify this... it's been a long time since year 10 Human movement) ... I've got a feeling it's the atp-pc system (rearange those letters, I think I got the name wrong). I'll see if I can find some of my old books and get back to you.

As somebody pointed out though, running in fast is not particuarly nessecary to bowl quick. Just look at Thomo bowl. It's all about rhythm. I can bowl faster from 10 steps than I can off 18 (which I used to run in off). That's why it's so difficult to say what energy sytem we use when we bowl. It changes depending on how far and how fast we run (I am making this all up but I think I've got a good enough grounding to be right)

In short though, it's hard to compare the physical attributes nessecary to play cricket, with those of almost any other sport. Cricket does rediculous things to our bodies which we were not desinged to do. It can cause emense dammage but it can also be well managed... Dont assume that because a player of another sport can only last so long, the same goes for cricket.