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Message: [QUOTE="Fitzy, post: 3583789, member: 9881"] A 24 year old averaging 50 3/5ths of the way through a shield season is always going to end up in the speculation of coming into the test team and that’s been the case for a long time. The test team shows pretty clearly that to perform at a high standard your average doesn’t need to be in the 60’s anymore. A top 5 batsman needs to be averaging more than 40 in my opinion and if the season average is in the 50’s you can excuse whatever happened earlier in there career, that’s just how it is. 6 gets a bit of leniency due to style of play these days but still preferably over 40. Crickets a rare sport in that what happens in your past is always, always held over you regardless of how long ago or whether you were in the infancy of your career rather than current ability. After a certain point sure it represents consistency but at 24 come off it. Players have to ply there trade across 3 formats at the same time. Gone are the days of averaging incredible amounts of runs we are now in an environment where one game can be red ball the next two white and then red again in the space of 2 and a half weeks and then in a month you have to perform at T20’s for 2 months and then continue the same patch of form in those other formats from 2 months ago or you are deemed shit. When you have a bloke averaging 50 in a season at 24 don’t you worry, regardless of there career average they will jump into selection. It would very much at his stage of career be acceptable to just be plodding along with barely a 30 season average batting 5 or 6 in that SA environment like 90% of the batters older than him are doing (if they are even playing). He has scored 150 runs more than the bloke who is 13th man in the Aus side and has an average of 50 at 24 that always, always, always gets you on the selectors note sheet for the next meeting. Doesn’t hurt when your list A average is nearly 40 and t20 average is nearly 30 with you being the anchor of the undefeated team in big bash. That never hurts either. No 24 year old doing what he has done so far with the season he is having doesn’t end up in the discussion no matter how realistic the ascension. The issue at hand is not that he is in the discussion it’s that nobody else is. McSweeney is full and well deserving of his spot in the discussion. McSweeney isn’t your regular first class of this era if anything he is showing hope of the new era that’s to come alongside Green and Hardie. He has shown heaps more relatively early in his career than a lot of these blokes with test caps have in there supposed peaks. Nathan is a fine candidate there are others above the age of 25 that truely represent what is wrong with the development of batters in the last decade. Not Nathan’s average of 34 because it took him till he was 23 to find his feet that’s not representative of our issue. Nathan has just had a unique path to scoring at a high rate for a season than most do. The bloke averaging 50 for the season should never be the poster boy for shit development of batters in the earlier generation of players. I 100% agree with your notion that the ability of cricket players at the international level is not high enough at a big enough production rate but the 24 year old with a 50 average this season isn’t representative of that because a rugby league forum have chucked up his name. Thats just the reality. Its represented in the massive number of blokes who have test caps over the last 8 years and none of them average above 40. Anyway I dont think either of us are budging on our stance and as much as I love arguing about cricket I love my Friday evenings even more so I wont keep arguing this from here on out. [/QUOTE]

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