When Shane Watson made his debut in the 2005 Sydney Test, then captain Ricky Ponting remarked: "We've all known Shane's potential for a long time now." The same could still be said today.
Once regarded as the next big thing in Australian cricket, Watson will next week mark a decade as a Test player with the record as a jack of all trades.
Watson's Boxing Day Test is following a familiar path to the all-rounder's previous 54. There have been some runs – 72 of them in keeping with his mid-30s average – a wicket and some valuable overs but, frustratingly, there has been more promise than results.
In both innings at the MCG the stage was set for Watson to steal the show only to be brought undone by the technical and mental deficiencies that have impeded his career.
On Boxing Day, he had a big score at his mercy only to lose his wicket to a lapse in concentration. As he described succinctly after play that day: "I got out again. I felt I was batting nicely and unfortunately I just got out again. It's very disappointing."
He could have offered the same explanation again on Monday after another golden opportunity went begging. He had arrived at the wicket with Australia 122 runs ahead and perhaps only a session away from breaking India's back.
After moving effortlessly to 17, Watson's day was ended abruptly, again. Easy runs loomed had he survived. This time his technique had let him down, as Michael Clarke pointed out with his clinical dissection of Watson's dismissal, caught behind to a well pitched-up ball from Ishant Sharma.
Watson can look a world-beater when the ball is delivered at him, like it is with bowling machines, allowing him to confidently plant his front foot and hit through the line.
But when probed in and around off stump by proven Test-class pacemen, he can get his feet into the wrong position.
"We always talk about the use of the crease and getting as far forward as you can or as far back as you can," Clarke said.
"Shane Watson got a really good stride forward but he's gone straight down the wicket. He hasn't taken his front leg to the line of the ball, so he's had to use his hands to get across to the line of the ball. That's where he's found the edge.
"If his foot was a little bit closer to the ball, I think he would have been in a much better position to front foot defend that right in the middle of the bat. He's had to push out wide with his hands and that's cost him his wicket."
Others, like Shane Warne, believe Watson's problems lie in his head. That he is uptight, too intense and an unnecessarily tough judge of his own game.
"I don't think it's got anything to do with talent or skill, I think he's got every shot in the book," Warne said. "It's the way he thinks about the game and sometimes he gets a bit too harsh on himself, I think. He just needs to relax a little bit.
"When he does get himself in, that's when he's got to be really tough to go on and make a big one."
The problem, however, is Watson too often does not kick on. It plagued him when he returned to the Test side as an opener in 2009 and remains a problem. He has passed 50 on 27 occasions but only four times turned that into a century.
But players past and present and at state and international level like seeing his name on the teamsheet.
"You just want him in your team, though," said Warne, who has played alongside Watson for Australia and Rajasthan in the Indian Premier League. "He's just a fantastic all-round talent, he gives you good balance with his bowling and his batting.
"You just sense when he makes the big hundred is that the light-bulb moment? Has he turned the corner?"
