Player improvements over time - When do we draw the line?

[Dr_Bassim]

I saw Rizwan two years ago, and he seemed terrible.

I still am not sold on him, but he dug it out and managed to hit a century, even if it was a bit slow.

Babar has also grown slowly into his spot.

Haris has shown glimpses of it as well by striking a well crafted century.

Which makes me wonder what do we do with players who refuse to show any sort of improvement over time and actually continue to repeat the same things, and show the same results?

Heck even Hafeez has done well in the latter part of his career.

Yasir in ODI
Amir
Umar Akmal

All these examples are of players who have NOT learnt anything yet they find themselves back in the team again and again.

Should they be given continuous chances while they continue to flop because they can have a world class performance once in a while?

Isn't this akin to having Afridi who was amazing on his day, and mediocre the remaining 360 days of the year?

Today's shot by Akmal was astonishing and then again it was not. It was just his nature and he can't resist it even after years and years in wilderness.

Why do we keep investing in him?

Even Kambli was left in the dust by India.

Yet we cling on.

 

[Abdullah719]

Why do we keep investing in him?

More out of hope than anything else, really.

 

[JibranAnsari]

I agree, they kept playing shafiq in odis. Now they are trying the same ttfs again.

 

[shaaik]

Back in the day we used to hardly give enough run to new comers to prove their talent by discarding them after 1 or 2 failures which I think was an extremely harsh policy to deal with young and up coming players and as a result we lost a lot of players who could have had decent careers but some would argue that we have had so much talent coming through those days and the policy of axing new players after a game or two was some what justified. However, now we have taken an exact opposite route where in we give numerous chances to young players to prove their mettle even after realizing that they don't have it in them to cut it at the international level but we still persist with them. It is an age-old problem with our cricket that we more often than not invest in wrong horses and then there is nepotism that takes it to a next level. I am ok with giving a long run to players who are selected on merit and have at least some sort of talent which can be nurtured but the nepotistic selections are really killing our already dying cricket.