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Originally Posted by Milo Gilchrist himself is almost worth the entire England tail (7-11). They will struggle to get runs against a full stength Aussie bowling line up. The batting, slightly weaker than what it was is still head and shoulders above England's. There is even a case to say that Engalnd's batting is no better than the days when we could put out a to 6 of Atherton, Trescothick, Butcher, Hussain, Thorpe, Stewart. |
I introduced a scale in another thread:
1 - Not genuine Test class - perhaps not really applicable here
2 - Journeymen - the likes of Knight / Saggers / Croft
3 - Heavyweight - in the league of Chanderpaul / Kallis (bowling) / Vettori (bowling)
4 - Seriously Impressive - moving into the level of Kirsten / Vaas / Kumble
5 - Outstanding - up there with Lara / Marshall / Warne
I stand by my verdicts on the batting:
Hayden (4-5) vs Tresco (3 on a good day)
Langer (3-4 batting) vs Strauss (too early to tell, but maybe 3-4)
Ponting (4-5 batting) vs Butcher (3+)
Martyn (4) vs Vaughan (4)
Lehman (4) vs Thorpe (4)
Clarke (too soon to say, but 4+) vs Flintoff (ditto, but maybe 3)
Gilchrist (4-5 batting) vs Jones (too soon to say but at best 2 batting)
All of which is my way of saying that on the batting side England remain basically at least one top / middle order man
down on the Aussies: put Bell in at 6 against Clarke, put Flintoff in at 7 against Gilchrist and we'd STILL be down on the Aussies on several counts (like Hayden vs Tresco)... but at least any imbalance would be evened up slightly by having Jones come in at 8.
If we can't HAVE an extra batsman then we're just going to have to accept that our batting doesn't match up.
ps. I'm not sure any of the remaining players really count as Test class batsmen.. but Warne, Giles and Hoggard can certainly "doa job" and the others (on both sides) are better than many tail-enders we've seen through time. I'm not sure either tail can claim (on the evidence to date) to be stronger than the other.