5 Cricketers who faded away after promising starts - Where are they now?

4. Phil Jacques

In the aftermath of Justin Langer’s retirement, Australia decided to bring in Phil Jacques of New South Wales to partner up with Matthew Hayden. He had already played two Tests and made loads of runs in domestic cricket. He scored a century in his comeback Test. He followed that up with another in the next match.

In the next few series, Jacques showed quality to sustain in the Australian Test side. However, Hayden didn’t play the series in West Indies in 2008, which forced Australia to open with Jacques and his NSW mate, Simon Katich. On a surface which was bound to create issues for the batsmen, the duo scored centuries in the second innings of the last Test of that tour. Katich smashed 157 and Jacques scored 108. Australia got back and was looking at a tour to India. Jacques managed to injure him and stayed ruled out for a stretch of time.

By then, Katich had started outperforming Hayden, who was in the twilight of his career. Jacques never came back to play Test cricket or any sort of cricket for the Aussies. His stats are still good though, 11 Tests, 902 runs, an average of 47.5 with three centuries and six fifties. He retired from cricket in 2014 and became a coach of domestic sides in Australia.