What defines talent and why do people think we have an abundance of it?

[hk031992]

What defines talent and why do people think we (Pakistan) have an abundance of it?

Seriously i do not understand this. Yes, we have produced some talented players. But there is no evidence that we have produced an extremely high number of talented players. Yet the myth of our endless domestic talent persists.

Take a look at Australia. Their population is around 25 million people. Ours is at least 7 times higher. In Aus, cricket is the second most popular team sport behind Aussie Rules or Rugby League depending on the state.

Yet despite their population being 7 times less than ours and cricket being #2 in team sports there, they have produced at least 5 world class opening batsmen in tests since 1990. Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and David Warner.

And what have we produced? Saeed Anwar is the only true world class opener we have produced in tests over the course of 32 years. Please do not mention Azhar Ali. A negative player like Ali isn't remotely in the league of a Langer or a Slater despite whatever stats he has.

So a country with 7 times smaller a population has produced 5 times as many great test opening batsmen in 32 years compared to us.

What about bowling? Since 1990, we have had ATG's in Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis with Shoaib Akhtar coming close. Ok that's 3 great bowlers.

Since 1990, Australia has had McGrath and Cummins, both of whom are ATG's or on their way.

The difference is the number of world class bowlers they have had during that time. They have produced so many very good quicks like Mitchell Johnson, Jason Gillespie, Ryan Harris, Craig McDermott, Josh Hazlewood, Bruce Reid, etc.

Please don't tell me we have produced as many quality quicks as them. Yes, we have had 3 great bowlers but we simply haven't produced nearly as many very good bowlers as they have.

Forget about Aus for a second. Take a small (5 million or so) country like New Zealand where cricket is a distant #2 behind rugby. A terrific fast bowler like Shane Bond is more talented than anyone we have produced since the 2 W's (and please don't compare Amir to Bond; Bond is miles ahead).

A country like England where cricket is only followed by some of the population has produced all rounders like Ben Stokes and Freddie Flintoff, who are both more "talented" than any Pakistani allrounder in the last 22 years.

Jimmy Anderson and Joe Root are both more talented than any Pakistani cricketer of the last 15 years at least.

I just don't understand. For all our "talent" which is seemingly endless, we have produced 4 great quicks (Imran, 2 W's and Akhtar) in our entire history and not a lot of world class quicks that are just a notch below (like Gillespie or Mitch).

We have produced one great off spinner (Saqlain), two very good leggies (Qadir and Yasir), 3-5 very good/great batsmen (Anwar, Miandad, Inzi, Yousuf, Younis and maybe Babar).

We have never procuced a genuinely quality wk batsmen like Gilchrist.

We have allowed players like Shahid Afridi and Younis Khan to play hundreds of ODI's each even though no other serious cricketing nation would have given either of those 2 more than a 100 ODI's each.

Where is all this magical "talent" coming from? I just don't get it. We have produced perhaps a couple of dozen high quality players despite essentially being a one sport nation (field hockey and squash are sports of the past for us sadly).

I just do not understand where this mythical talent exists. Shaeen Afridi and Babar seem like the only 2 genuinely talented players in the team.

 

[ElRaja]

in the semi-pro era, Pakistan had some of the best semi-pro competitions in the world from tape ball to domestic. this meant a lot of players made it to the Pakistan team either via formal or informal avenues.

the informal avenues to outsiders appeared to be "talent", whilst barring specific technical standards, these avenues were semi-pro competitively.

in the last twenty years with the advent of t20 leagues, cricket has moved from semi-professionalism for the majority of working cricketers, towards full professionalism.

pakistans informal avenues, and formal for that matter, have not evolved and thus Pakistan now look devoid of talent, which basically means the pathways are not preparing cricketers for competing against the big teams.

 

[Mirpuri Don]

in the semi-pro era, Pakistan had some of the best semi-pro competitions in the world from tape ball to domestic. this meant a lot of players made it to the Pakistan team either via formal or informal avenues.

the informal avenues to outsiders appeared to be "talent", whilst barring specific technical standards, these avenues were semi-pro competitively.

in the last twenty years with the advent of t20 leagues, cricket has moved from semi-professionalism for the majority of working cricketers, towards full professionalism.

pakistans informal avenues, and formal for that matter, have not evolved and thus Pakistan now look devoid of talent, which basically means the pathways are not preparing cricketers for competing against the big teams.

Nailed it.

Pakistan appeared to have a "lot of talent" because potential ATGs seemed to come out of "outside the system", as you say the aura of semi-pro allowed such a reputation, but while others (esp England) have professionalized their set-up we stuck behind and you can't no more count on 2-3 generational talents to carry the whole XI.

As for the population argument, I've read that the first teams recruited exclusively from two cities, Lahore (mainly) and Karachi, I think Waqar Younis is the first established cricketer to come out of this circuit, and if you put Lahore + Karachi populations, especially in the decades before (without the population boom/migration of late), then we have a decent "talented cricketers per capita ratio" I guess ?

 

[Muhammad Saad]

By the definition of talent it means a batsmen who can play shots aggressive shots all around the ground equally to pace and spin bowlers or a batsman who values his wicket too much and can grind it in bowling friendly conditions and for pace bowler if he can hit the 145k mark every now and then and can at least be able to bowl one type of swing/seam at will and can either bowl a heavy bouncer or accurate Yorkers and for spinners the first and far more important thing is big turn both ways for leg spinner and with decent control and for spinner a big off break with immaculate control and a deceptive arm bowl if he can’t bowl doosra, but such raw talent won’t translate in to big success but we definitely used to have such kind of players in abundance couple of decades ago but now we are not producing raw talent anymore and it’s apparent from the quality of domestic cricket.

 

[Mamoon]

The myth that Pakistan has a lot of talent is the biggest lie ever told in cricket. It is a coping mechanism for our delusional fans.

Facts support the claim that Pakistan is the least talented cricket nation. The only talent that Pakistan had was in fast bowling & even those fast bowlers benefited a lot from ball-tampering.

Imran, Wasim & Waqar all bowled with doctored balls. They would be averaging higher today because it is not easy to get away with it now.

Pakistan = least talented cricket nation with the most delusional & ignorant fans. It is a lethal, deadly combination.

 

[hk031992]

By the definition of talent it means a batsmen who can play shots aggressive shots all around the ground equally to pace and spin bowlers or a batsman who values his wicket too much and can grind it in bowling friendly conditions and for pace bowler if he can hit the 145k mark every now and then and can at least be able to bowl one type of swing/seam at will and can either bowl a heavy bouncer or accurate Yorkers and for spinners the first and far more important thing is big turn both ways for leg spinner and with decent control and for spinner a big off break with immaculate control and a deceptive arm bowl if he can’t bowl doosra, but such raw talent won’t translate in to big success but we definitely used to have such kind of players in abundance couple of decades ago but now we are not producing raw talent anymore and it’s apparent from the quality of domestic cricket.

Ok. Good definitions. But when did we have this abundance of such players? I always remember us having batting issues. Anwar was our only world class opener, why couldn't we produced someone else as good if we had so much talent?

Inzamam and Yousuf were good. But none of our batsmen were in the same league as Lara, Tendulkar or Ponting. We were always prone to batting collapses.

We produced a few talented players like Akram (who was indeed extraordinary) and this gave people the impression that we had talent in abundance. In reality we had a handful of extremely gifted players and a lot of super mediocre ones (Rameez, Watsi, Shahid Afridi in ODI'S etc)

 

[hk031992]

The myth that Pakistan has a lot of talent is the biggest lie ever told in cricket. It is a coping mechanism for our delusional fans.

Facts support the claim that Pakistan is the least talented cricket nation. The only talent that Pakistan had was in fast bowling & even those fast bowlers benefited a lot from ball-tampering.

Imran, Wasim & Waqar all bowled with doctored balls. They would be averaging higher today because it is not easy to get away with it now.

Pakistan = least talented cricket nation with the most delusional & ignorant fans. It is a lethal, deadly combination.

While i agree that we are heavily overrated in terms of "talent", i also respectfully diagree. Anwar and Saqlain were both extremely gifted. Yousuf was too to be fair.

The ball tampering is overrated in my view. Akram is probably the most versatile bowler to have ever played cricket. He had far more than inswing, he had outswing, slower balls, straight yorkers, bouncers, cutters etc. I think he would dominate even today since the batsmen's defensive techniques are not as sound as they were. So i respectfully disagree on Imran, Wasim and Waqar. I think all of them had the ability to be great today even without ball tampering.

Overall, i do agree that we have never been an extremely gifted nation. For every Akram, Saqlain and Anwar we produced, we also produced a lot of rubbish players.

 

[Adil_94]

So Pakistan is less talented than likes of Bangladesh Sri Lanka West Indies and Zimbabwe come on don't be so negative

 

[Corridor of Uncertainty]

What a canon fodder of a thread.

All those who feed on either side of the debate will have a field day.

In my opinion, there is good enough player talent to keep Pakistan somewhere in top 6 but not in top 2. It can consistently beat teams below it and will be reliably beaten by teams above - with some exceptions either way.

What Pakistan does severely lack is leadership talent. When good leadership happens, Pakistan rises to top 2 or 3. When it goes away, it flounders in top 6.

 

[hk031992]

So Pakistan is less talented than likes of Bangladesh Sri Lanka West Indies and Zimbabwe come on don't be so negative

No, we have more than those nations.

The issue is the idea that we have a lot of supremely talented players. I do not believe we have produced more talent than other top cricketing nations.

 

[Adil_94]

Pakistan did historically produce a lot of raw talents more so in bowling but these guys couldn't develop anything beyond that bar a handful of bowlers either due to lack of application or poor coaching.

Also the way a lot of our greats were found outside the system by random nets or galley cricket gave credence to the idea that Pakistan is just overflowing with untapped talent that isn't being harnessed properly.

But in this more professionalise era where fitness stamina is just as importance as skill Pak has been left way behind.

N even the talent well seems to be drier than before

 

[Adil_94]

We are struggling to produce even Gul level bowlers never mind 2 Ws. Only one who can be world class in all formats for me is Shaheen.

It's also a comfort blanket that PCT Fans tell ourselves whenev3r we play poor that "talent bohot hai laikan sahih istemaal ne ho raha hai inka" .

We have one world level batsman Babar n our fans overdo it comparing him to all time greats. Cos we are so starved of top batsman.

Not helped by media personalities who play on their tired tropes and cliches

 

[asfandyar]

Pakistanis have a habit of believing all that glitters is gold, while Indians look at numbers. This is true even for highly educated Pakistanis who are well-versed in evidence-based research. Make no mistake: Pakistan has a severe dearth of talent, but the flukes and miracles reinforce our delusions.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

What defines talent and why do people think we (Pakistan) have an abundance of it?

Seriously i do not understand this. Yes, we have produced some talented players. But there is no evidence that we have produced an extremely high number of talented players. Yet the myth of our endless domestic talent persists.

Take a look at Australia. Their population is around 25 million people. Ours is at least 7 times higher. In Aus, cricket is the second most popular team sport behind Aussie Rules or Rugby League depending on the state.

Yet despite their population being 7 times less than ours and cricket being #2 in team sports there, they have produced at least 5 world class opening batsmen in tests since 1990. Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden and David Warner.

And what have we produced? Saeed Anwar is the only true world class opener we have produced in tests over the course of 32 years. Please do not mention Azhar Ali. A negative player like Ali isn't remotely in the league of a Langer or a Slater despite whatever stats he has.

So a country with 7 times smaller a population has produced 5 times as many great test opening batsmen in 32 years compared to us.

What about bowling? Since 1990, we have had ATG's in Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis with Shoaib Akhtar coming close. Ok that's 3 great bowlers.

Since 1990, Australia has had McGrath and Cummins, both of whom are ATG's or on their way.

The difference is the number of world class bowlers they have had during that time. They have produced so many very good quicks like Mitchell Johnson, Jason Gillespie, Ryan Harris, Craig McDermott, Josh Hazlewood, Bruce Reid, etc.

Please don't tell me we have produced as many quality quicks as them. Yes, we have had 3 great bowlers but we simply haven't produced nearly as many very good bowlers as they have.

Forget about Aus for a second. Take a small (5 million or so) country like New Zealand where cricket is a distant #2 behind rugby. A terrific fast bowler like Shane Bond is more talented than anyone we have produced since the 2 W's (and please don't compare Amir to Bond; Bond is miles ahead).

A country like England where cricket is only followed by some of the population has produced all rounders like Ben Stokes and Freddie Flintoff, who are both more "talented" than any Pakistani allrounder in the last 22 years.

Jimmy Anderson and Joe Root are both more talented than any Pakistani cricketer of the last 15 years at least.

I just don't understand. For all our "talent" which is seemingly endless, we have produced 4 great quicks (Imran, 2 W's and Akhtar) in our entire history and not a lot of world class quicks that are just a notch below (like Gillespie or Mitch).

We have produced one great off spinner (Saqlain), two very good leggies (Qadir and Yasir), 3-5 very good/great batsmen (Anwar, Miandad, Inzi, Yousuf, Younis and maybe Babar).

We have never procuced a genuinely quality wk batsmen like Gilchrist.

We have allowed players like Shahid Afridi and Younis Khan to play hundreds of ODI's each even though no other serious cricketing nation would have given either of those 2 more than a 100 ODI's each.

Where is all this magical "talent" coming from? I just don't get it. We have produced perhaps a couple of dozen high quality players despite essentially being a one sport nation (field hockey and squash are sports of the past for us sadly).

I just do not understand where this mythical talent exists. Shaeen Afridi and Babar seem like the only 2 genuinely talented players in the team.

Good post.

You compared Pak vs Australia to do a great analysis. However, we will need to go a little granular to expose the actual facts.

And to answer your question talent,

Take the example Usman Khawaja.
There will be many more “Usman Khawaja’s” in the Pak school level kids.

What actually makes the difference to bring those Ismsn Khawajas to come up the surface are four major factors.

1- The Right Training
2 - Great Facilities
3- Fairness in selection
4- Financial stability, culture and social atmosphere.


You should compare these four factors in that 25 million population vs the same four factors in 250 million population.

And I have a first hand experience with that when I went thru all that.

And if I put in short - you are comparing honey with mud.

There is no proper training and coaching at the school level.
Available sporting facilities for the general public are truly non-existent when you compare what’s available to 25 million vs what’s available for 250 million.
If you are in a Western Country, did you notice the emphasis on the amount, the class and the quality of school level sports, and available facilities, training and coaching?
Did you notice how western parents take their kids to their sporting event every evening and every weekend?

Then,
There is an extra special level of corruption, dishonesty politics and grouping in the domestic cricket and in the general atmosphere of Pak social set up.
I made a post on it based on my personal experiences when I went thru playing from school to first class cricket in Pakistan.

Take a look here
http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...-dark-secret-of-cricket-in-Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

And then finally, the financial squeeze and poverty in general public and millions of struggling families who have talent kids.
Many families simply cannot afford to let their kids play sports or consider taking sports as careers.

It’s totally the opposite when you compare that society of 25 mil vs 250 mil

Parents, and social atmosphere truly encourage kids to take up sports as careers in the western world. And they provide the runways for the planes to fly.


In short, what you need to understand is that,
Nature has sprinkled the golden nuggets of talent among all mankind in a very proportion.
How do you train, groom and bring that talent up, is all what matters.

The likes of Saeed Anwar or Wasim Akram or Asif Charsi were not “talented” - that is an altogether different category of “naturally gifted extra special talent”.

And If they were born, raised and trained in a western country, their performance and achievements would’ve been something else.

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There is no such talent anywhere in the world as much as cricket talent in Pakistan, but our problem is that either we cannot find this talent or we cannot train it, however, PCB should take appropriate actions so that cricket becomes better.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PakistanCricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PakistanCricket</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PSL2023?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PSL2023</a></p>— Abdul Razzaq&#55356;&#56821;&#55356;&#56816; (@ARazzaq0fficial) <a href="https://twitter.com/ARazzaq0fficial/status/1618076559142973441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Rana]

The way we view talent is flawed these days

 

[WengerOut]

He says talent cannot be found. Then how come he says there is more talent here.

 

[Birdman]

How is he quantifying something that cannont be found?

 

[sweep_shot]

Talent is subjective. Also, it is an extremely overrated word.

Talent is like a natural resource. It means nothing if you can't extract it and turn it into a good product.

Every country has talent. But, desi countries (including Pakistan) probably overrate their talent pools out of emotions.