Dalrymple batted well (better than all his colleagues) against the Aussies in
this losing cause, coming in at 93/6, supporting Flintoff and then scrabbling together a total with the tail. He then hit 30 off 18 balls and an unbeaten 29 off 26 balls to ensure England beat Aus and NZ to qualify for the CB series finals.
Aside from Sri Lanka the only teams Dalrymple has bowled at for any statistically significant number of overs are the following:
Code:
(6 ball overs) Mat O R W BB1 BB2 Ave Econ SR 4w 5w
v Australia 7 26 120 3 1/25 1/38 40.00 4.61 52.0 0 0
v Pakistan 5 26 95 4 2/13 1/38 23.75 3.65 39.0 0 0
Two eminently satisfactory sets of stats.
Answer me this, though: if Flintoff were injured... how would you balance the side without playing Dalrymple? I can imagine a team of specialists that had Nixon at 6, Plunket at 7 and Mahmood at 8 ahead of Lewis, Panesar and Anderson - quite a tail. Somehow, Collingwood and Dalrymple as 5th bowler and ditching a specialist seamer strikes me as the way ANY coach would go!