I remember a discussion some time ago about how the PCB should implement formal requirements for minimum ages and educational standards for their players. most people said that they would agree to any such initiative by the PCB. now, there is the other side of coin. and I’d like to give two examples to illustrate my rambling.
Srinath: he was a very good intelligent bowler, quite pacy at his peak. but as most fans will agree he was not a very strong bowler mentally. his body language wasn’t that of an aggressive fast bowler and he often wilted under pressure. it often seemed especially towards the end as if he wasn’t really motivated or interested to be on the field. or at least that is what I felt (please, don’t make this is an Indo-Pak issue etc etc). now, many would say that this was because fast bowling was just not India’s strength but contrast Srinath’s attitude with say Parsad’s attitude. whether he was a good bowler or not he always looked like he meant business. Srinath, on the flip side, looked like a world beater at times and then he would look completely lost.
Saeed Anwar: Many people will remember him as Pakistan’s best opener and premier one-day batsman. But there was another dimension to him and that was his lack of motivation at times. I think many fans will agree that he was a very, very gifted player and capable of being the best in the world, a tag which he even held for a brief period, IMO. but for the longest time, the easiest method to get him out was to bowl outswingers outside off and he would invariably edge one of them. he had this problem throughout his career. one time, when he was dismissed this way a number of times on a trot, the coach/manager pulled him up and asked him to sort it out in the nets, he famously remarked that he was not the only batsman in the team and the team should stop relying on him so much. now, what he said was true because those were the days when if he fired, we’d get a decent total and our bowlers bowled us to a win and if he didn’t, sometimes our bowlers succeeded due to their superhuman efforts but sometimes they didn’t. but would you expect this kinda careless attitude from someone like Waugh, Lara, Tendulkar or any other of Anwar’s contemporaries?
the reason why I chose these two cricketers is because they had a couple of things in common. they were both extremely talented players, they were both well educated and both of them underachieved. I think the correlation between a player’s hunger to succeed/passion for the game and education is not a coincidence - at least in our part of the world. there will always be exceptions like say Imran Khan who despite being educated had an insatiable hunger for success. and obviously not getting educated is not a guarantee for success either - many examples for that exist. but guys like Wasim Akram, Miandad, Inzi etc achieved what they did because they knew they had no option but to succeed. I think guys like Gibbs and Kallis are renowned for being as thickheaded as they come but look at their remarkable careers.
all this is not to say that this is a good pattern or relationship (if it is one at all). I don’t know where I’m going with this 
but I just thought it was little bit interesting and was definitely more than a coincidence. what say you? do you think this is because when you actually stay in school, it matures you and you realize that cricket is only a game and losing is not the end of the world? and to actually sustain the pressure that international cricket piles on you, you have to have a ruthless, single-minded attitude which is not easy to muster when you start thinking that cricket’s only a game. and I think we all know that winning in int’l cricket is all about who handles the pressure better. sorry for the long post guys.
