I'd still go with Katich on the basis that he's just getting to the point of being an established member of the team: if someone else get a long term injury in the next 12 months you'll be playing Katich AND someone new.. and it would be better to have one debutant and a guy with a track record than a guy who was dropped and has been recaled and another, similarly inexperienced player who's yet to establish a place.

Gilchrist? Maybe he IS up to batting at no 3.. but the Sri Lanka innings didn't prove it: that pitch went from the impossible to the near perfect as it dried out.. and then got more difficult again as it cracked up.. and Gilly was lucky enough to be striding to the crease at the best possible time - I'm not saying Boycott's mother could have done it right there and right then.. but I doubt it goes down as his best innings.

More to the point... even if the innings WAS superb.. it doesn't affect the more general problem that at no 3 you want a guy who, when he does get in, becomes the anchor man around whom all the others can play. Dravid is the classic current example.. but so, equally, were Butcher, Sarwan and (in the past) Kirsten (and I suppose Hussain).

Gilly is the perfect no 6 or 7.. because when faced with running out of partners against a tired attack (and especially when presented with an old ball) he's able to rack up big enough scores to turn matches. Doing the same at 3 just makes no sense: it just means that he'd be asked to cramp his style and be a second rate Ponting or Martyn.. and that Lehman would end up coming under pressure to be a second rate Gilchrist.