3 Batting stars of tomorrow - Legends to be

3 Batting stars of tomorrow – Legends to be: Growing up in the 90s, watching cricket was a gift that kept on giving. That generation of the game had plenty of legends, Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis to name a few. Then came the 2000s, where in the second half of the decade, players like Sangakkara, AB de Villiers, MS Dhoni, Dale Steyn, Mitchell Johnson, James Anderson, Michael Clarke, Hashim Amla, rose to prominence. All of the above-named players were a delight to watch across formats, leaving behind a legacy and inspiring youngsters across borders to take up the game.

The game has seen a transformation of sorts and every player now needs to take their game up a notch. While an average of 40+ in the 90s and early 2000s was exemplary, it is now the bare minimum. A lot is now expected of the batsmen which puts added pressure on the bowlers who have to out think the batsmen on every step. Let us now look at the stars of tomorrow, players who would go on to inspire the coming generations of cricket lovers.

1. Steve Smith (Australia):

Rarely would you get to see a player who started his career as a specialist bowler and went on to become the No.1 batsman in Test cricket. Well, Steve Smith is that guy. He spent many years on the sidelines, played as a floater, a bowling all-rounder, a batsman who can bowl. Smith has batted at every position from No.3 to No.9 in Tests and No.3 to No.8 in ODIs. But the way Steve Smith has transformed himself is spectacular.

He had a very indifferent start to his career, trying to fit in as an all-rounder, Smith failed to give satisfactory results to the ever demanding Australian selectors. He made his Test debut in 2010 and had to wait long before he could be a regular in the side. The 2 years of wilderness in international cricket is probably what made him stronger mentally. He made a comeback in 2013 and scored his first Test ton in the 2013 Ashes. He went on to score a couple of more centuries in the Ashes of the Australian summer of 2013-2014, which sealed his spot in the side.

Australia toured South Africa next and a good show there earned him accolades from a lot of cricket fans across the world. What really made Smith a world class batsman, though was his performance in the emotional series against India. In that series Smith, at the back of 4 centuries and 2 half-centuries scored 769 runs in 4 Tests at an astounding average of 128.16, which elevated him as second in command to skipper Clarke and he also filled in for Clarke as the captain in 3 games of the series.

He carried his form into the World Cup, scoring a wonderful century in the semi-final and rightfully scoring the winning runs for his team in the finals. Smith hasn’t yet stopped scoring; he was also the highest scorer in the Ashes 2015 with 508 runs at an average of 56.44.

Michael Clarke has retired from all formats of the game and with the burden of captaincy on his young shoulders; it will be exciting to watch the career graph of Steve Smith. With the future filled with new challenges and opportunities, Smith would like to extend this purple patch of his and redefine modern day batting in his unorthodox style.