This is now the new era of cricket. And i think this is the time when we are going to loose our best players in coming 2-3 or 4 years. This is the way everything has to happen, but the difference around this time is the lack of talent.
This is the era when we really lack some good players specially batsmen.
In every generation there were few people who were compared to all time greats.
We can start from W.G Grace to Bradman , Sobers, Border,Gavaskar, Richards, Lloyd, Kapil dev, Imran khan, Botham, Miadad, A DeSilva, M Waugh
.. and few times back to the current scene, we have
Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Inzamam Ul Haq, Ricky Ponting, Gilchrist, S Anwar, Jayasurya, Gary Kirsten, Andy Flower , Mat Hayden, J kallis
All of them were in each others overlapping period and still playing as their own class and known as a one of the greatest. they will surely be praised by coming generation because of their sheer talent , class and the records describing everything in it.
But if we go back 5 years or around, we hardly see any such talent who can come in tis elite group.
Yes we got few good players but do we really think that they can catch up with these people.
Players like Pietersen, Flintoff, A B DeVillers, Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, M Clarke , B McCullum, G Gambhir, V Sehwag, G Smith and few more are good players but they never came in this group when compared in every format, situation, pressure, class, consistency, fitness.
Pietersen started as a great player who had everything in him, but in very short period, he went other side with his less interest of cricket , fitness. He is still considered as a dangerous customer but never in elite panel
Flintoff was/is one of a genuine all rounder this world cricket got. But his inconsistent batting and fitness led him down and now we can see him signing off.
A B DeVilliers is still a key young player who has everything in his batting. He possesses everything a great batsman should have but misses something. His batting has the capability but consistency has not been same from last 6-7 years.
Yuvraj Singh is on of the player who is the backbone of INDIAN team in ODIs but what is that is stopping him from being same in TEST matches. He is no doubt a wonderful batsman of his own nature but his records does not match his ability which leads him down a bit.
Dhoni has controlled INDIA in a wonderful manner with his captaincy and batting.
He has shown everything a batsman should have. He can play in pressure , he can deliver when needed, he can be cool in any situation but still he is favorable to everyone only because of his unorthodox nature. Now from here we can have debate, what is important ? class in a batsman or his performance with bat, consistency with bat ?
M Clarke has great hands in Australia's success in recent past. He has shown his ability in both TESTS and ODIS . BUt still he is not the one who will be in the group where ricky ponting stands.
B McCullum has shown great batting skills and played many winning innings for New Zealand, but his inconsistent nature has done the same thing what was done to GIbbs.
Gibbs is/was a player who had his own batting style and very effective one. But his inconsistency stopped hs path many a times.
G Smith, i am not sure about this man as he is too good in every department of the game when is comes to batting. He has shown his batting greatness many a times. But do we really take him to that great buch of people ?
G Gambhir, even this player has shown tremendous amount of talent with his bat . But at times we think about his game . When it comes to application, dedication, consistancy GAMBHIR will stant tall. But he surely lacked few things .. but are never sure of GAMBHIR as he is improving day by day and his consistency is always with him to take him to the level.
V Sehwag is one of the players who makes their own style of batting popular in every corner of this cricket world. Bu his inconsistent nature for long time take shim out of that panel.
