Old Age Catching Up with Some Teams

The New Age of Test Cricket

The key indicator as to how a test team is doing is by its results.  And generally teams that have had steady selections and have played together for many years are the ones that have good results, a majority of the time.  Case in point is the current Australian Team.  Apart from that Ashes Blip and the loss of some key players over a staggered time-frame, they have been near nigh unbeatable. But is their star about to wane?

Yes I got to wondering, what does age mean to a team, more importantly a winning team?  So I did some delving and decided to analyse all the ages of the top 8 teams in world Test Cricket (Based on the teams last test line up) and the results tend to suggest older teams get better results and you’d expect that, with one exception.  See if you can spot it?

Country                                Average Age                      Last Five Test Results

Pakistan                                          31                                           2W,2L,1D

Australia                                         30                                           4W,1L

Sri Lanka                                        30                                           3W,1L,1D

West Indies                                     29                                           4L,1D

South Africa                                    29                                           2W,2L,1D

England                                           28                                           5L

India                                                28                                           1W,2L,2D

New Zealand                                   26                                           3W,2D

Yes you see it too, a team that is very young (the age weighted up with Fulton and Taylor) and playing

winning cricket.  But it asks a question of the teams at the top of that age ranking.  How long will the top three go before they are forced to inject youth to replace the old guard?  Australia, especially the likes of Harris and Johnson, will be one that shouldn't be too affected by player replacement as they have a good domestic competition that breeds replacements.  Historically they inject, adapt and show promise pretty quickly.  But will they have the same competitiveness we expect from that team in two years’ time?

And that’s the point of this article.  Two years from now??  How many teams are in rebuilding mode as we speak?  New Zealand has injected youth over the past few years (7 players 25 years and under) and that team is now showing promise.  The West Indies too are a team playing the selection game but fair to say their test results don’t reflect just yet?  Teams like Sri Lanka and Pakistan will soon need to start shedding that old guard so in two years’ time expect them both to be struggling a little for a time.  South Africa, India and England are at crossroads.  Retirements, selection quandaries, and just poor play are crippling them.  All teams are (or were) littered with older players and they just aren’t making things happen.  Seniority should mean general good form and at times they do show it, but not enough.

I guess one could quite easily dismiss this study.  Results will vary, home and away competitions tend to do that, but my bet come 2016 there will be some very real surprises in world cricket.