Cricket: Average experience comparision

I was discussing with one of the friends today about the average age of the teams (India and Australia) as I had noted earlier in my blog. His point was, lets see what the average experience of the players is. The thought was - Indian players are 'older' not necessarily by the age, but by the # of years of cricket they've played. With so many years of cricket behind them, the fire may not be there to do what it takes to win in crunch games.

This was an interesting excercise to do. Gosh - doesn't it feel that Sachin, Saurav, Rahul and Kumble have been playing forever. I decided to do the comparision - same teams, same format but this time the numbers represent the # of years since the ODI debut.

Rahul Dravid 10
Sachin Tendulkar 18
Ajit Agarkar 8
MS Dhoni 2
Saurav Ganguly 15
Harbhajan Singh 8
Dinesh Karthik 2
Zaheer Khan 6
Anil Kumble 16
Munaf Patel 1
Irfan Pathan 2
Virender Sehwag 7
Sreesanth 1
Robin Uthappa 1
Yuvraj Singh 7
Average Experience 6.9

Adam Gilchrist 10
Mathew Hayden 14
Ricky Ponting 12
Michael Clarke 4
Andrew Symonds 8
Michael Hussey 3
Shane Watson 5
Brad Hogg 11
NW Bracken 6
SW Tait 1
Glenn McGrath 13
Stuart Clark 2
Brad Haddin 6
Brad Hodge 2
Mitchell Johnson 2
Average Experience 6.6

This is very interesting! I wouldn't have thought that the Australian team and the players in the team have been on an average as many years as the Indian players have been.

I think the real statistic here is the # of matches played, and I'm pretty sure that that statistic is not going to be very different for a Dravid/Tendulkar/Ganguly when compared to Ponting/McGrath/Gilchrist.

Bottomline - I think there was nothing wrong in the team selection. Adam Gilchrist had once said - "A cricket matures at the age of 33/34".. All of our "old horses" are in that age bracket. Give them a break. They are fine cricketers. (To the media) Don't create a fuss when one of them is dropped for not performing upto the mark. Let new guys come in. Let the "old horses" keep their place in the team based on performance. Tendulkar's average in the last 10 matches is 39.. That qualifies him in the Indian team compared to anyone else. Don't expect him to save our behinds all the time. Let a youngster come in place of a ill performing Sehwag or Ganguly or Harbhajan or Agarkar. Rotate the players. And most importantly, if you're following Indian cricket. follow some domestic matches as well. There's loads of cricket talent in the country!