Five late bloomers who finished with a glorious career
Playing international cricket for your country and getting a chance to represent it at the highest level is a privilege for many. Some get the chance to start playing at an early age, take their time to settle in and then make the inroads into being one of the mainstays of the team. But there are some players who get their break at the highest level late but they manage to make it big. Here’s a look at 5 such players who started their international careers late, but then made it big in their career.
Misbah-ul-Haq (26 years 9 months 11 days)
Misbah-ul-Haq was a late entrant into the international scene, making his debut at 26 years of age. Misbah set foot in international cricket as a Test cricketer when he made his first appearance as a member of the Pakistani Test team. The now-retired batting stalwart played in a total of 75 Tests, 162 One Day Internationals and 39 Test matches and scored 5,222, 5,122 and 788 runs respectively. He was a pillar of the Pakistan team when he was playing and now that he has retired, he continues to serve his country’s cricket team as the coach of the national team.
Michael Hussey (28 years 8 months 5 days)
Michael Hussey, born on the 27th of May 1975 fought his way into the Australian team by performing well at the lower levels. And, once he was in, left no stones unturned to quickly move up the ranks and become one of the mainstays of the team, and went on to play over 300 international matches. Hussey, in his career, played a total of 302 international matches across formats (79 Tests, 185 ODIs, and 38 T20Is) and scored 12,398 runs (6,235 in Tests, 5,442 in ODIs, and 721 in T20Is).
The Greatest T20I innings?#OnThisDay in 2010, Michael Hussey against Pakistanpic.twitter.com/ztcGUICaGM
— Cricketopia (@CricketopiaCom) May 14, 2020
George Bailey (29 years 4 months 25 days)
George Bailey was aged 29 years when he first made an appearance in international cricket. After making it into the T20I team for Australia, Bailey’s ODI debut followed the same year and Test debut a year later and before anyone could gauge the strength of this Tasmanian batting powerhouse, he was a mainstay in the team.
Bailey also went on to lead the Australian team in limited-overs cricket. He played 5 Tests, 90 ODIs and 30 T20 Internationals. In those matches, he was able to accumulate 3,700 runs and showed the impact a player can have on a team in spite of being a late entry into the setup.
Chris Rogers (30 years 4 months 16 days)
Chris Rogers, the opening batsman from Australia, received a national call up in 2008 when he was 30 years old. But, a Test debut was not all that would help Rogers start his career in true sense. He was dropped after playing only a single Test and his career seemed to have come to an end but then Australia’s search for an opener made the selectors call him back into the team after a gap of 6 years. And, he did not disappoint them. As soon as he got into the team he looked all set and ready. In the 25 Tests he played before hanging his boots, he got a lot of runs, 2,015 to be precise, at an average of 41.98 which in no sense is an easy number to stay at for an opening batsman.
A crucial knock from Chris Rogers in the run chase, and what a shot to bring up his fifty! #ohwhatafeelinghttps://t.co/Z0fFnm3BHC
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 20, 2014
Saeed Ajmal (30 years 8 months 19 days)
Having started his career in a One Day International match against India at 30 years of age, Saeed Ajmal did have a few hiccups during his stay in the team but he made sure that he powered through all of them and made a name for himself in the meantime.
Ajmal, since starting to play cricket for Pakistan in the One Day Internationals, made his way into the Pakistan Test team and T20 International squad and proved his mettle in every single one of them. The spinner during his playing days was the leading wicket-taker for his team, as in ODIs he took 184 wickets in 113 matches, in Tests he took 178 wickets in 35 games and in T20Is he got 85 wickets to his name in 64 matches.
