bigfluffylemon wrote:Beats me sussex. You could argue that it's kinda worked with Stokes (and I do remember having arguments on the old TMS boards about Broad 10 years ago in similar situations, when he was picked more on 'potential' than actual merit and the potential did eventually flourish), but England's selection policy since the unmitigated disaster that was the Ashes four years ago has been pretty dreadful. We're no closer to filling the holes in the side left by Strauss, KP, Bell, Swann and Bresnan than we were then - only really Bairstow (for Prior) has been a success.
Heaven help us all when Cook and Anderson call it a day, especially if Broad doesn't recover his mojo soon.
Again though, BFL, there are stages to such things. Stokes aside (who by vague memory averaged mid 30s with bat, high 20s with ball on test debut in FC, so well justified his opportunity), when you look at Broad I am virtually 100% sure when he was test capped he was averaging dead on 30 a wicket after 1 or 2 seasons with Leicestershire. I believe he was also bowling brilliantly in the new T20 formats, and was very quickly among the best one day performer on the circuit. In his 1st or 2nd year I think he was the most economical English player in the scene, or very close to it. He got his test cap after probably a year of international limited overs cricket where he did pretty well (and continued to improve after for a while)....
So there was a basis there. He wasnt a 20-21 year old with no established professional quality being asked to make 2 huge steps at once. He was a 20 year old who was already performing the best in his team, had taken a big step in limited overs, was seemingly improving all the time, and looked a solid investment. In the end, was he test capped in 2008? The real breakthrough in his test career would have been the Oval in 2009, when he ripped through the Aussies in the deciding test? Not that long of a pay off really.
Kind of shows you the difference in a decade though.