Martyn's retirement is bad news for England and good news for Australia.
His voluntary retirement acknowledged he was well past his best. So a cheap wicket for England has now gone. They can now replace him with someone who is going to contribute to the side. The replacement will not perform as badly as Martyn has done against England recently.
You would of thought Hayden would of taken the hint and done likewise.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

Yes but his replacement (Symonds) would have to be considered an even easier wicket. But i agree with your sentiments - we needed to get rid of two or three older guys for the good of the team. Gilchrist and McGrath should be the next two IMO because we have the players of sufficient quality to replace them (Clark/Haddin)

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The thought police are everywhere..............

Symonds is not a test player anyway so he will have minimal effect in the game.It is Ponting and Hussey that England have a bigger problem with.

And i don't think those two intend on retiring in the near future.

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The thought police are everywhere..............

Im a bit surprised that Australia did not give Jaques a chance, he would have really bolstered their batting, Even Hussey and Ponting can fail and aside from them the Australian batting would have benifited from someone like Jaques.

Martyn did the right thing in stepping aside...will Giles do the same? for the good of his country

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They had to drop Martyn he has offered nothing. We haven't seen Symonds play England it should be interesting.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

Interesting and disappointing per usual.re Symonds.

They are not going to pay all of Martyns contract seeing how he quit all forms of cricket.

This is not a good idea.

It would have been decent to acknowledge his decision and his contrabution to Australian cricket with a good will gesture $A 200,000.

It does not set a good example with us having so many old players near retirement age.

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" You don't want the truth,you can't handle the truth."

I think Jacques is discriminated against because of his technique. His technique is often described as "not very pretty to look at but effective enough" . Should'nt matter of course - but not when it comes to Australian cricketing culture. That'sthe reason why guys like Martyn and M.Waugh played so many tests while others like Darren Lehmann did not. I think Jacques will be bypassed for someone else when Hayden or Langer go.

Yes it always seems to go that way literally. Symonds (as a test player) is always interesting to watch, but generally dissapoints.

This is the real world Kenny. If i could break work contacts and be paid out the entire sum of money, i would never complete a contract. If they paid out Martyn, then all the other guys would try the same stunt. When Lehman retired, CA did pay out the restof his contract because he stayed on at state level to give something back to Australian cricket.Martyn should of, he did'nt, so no cash for him.

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The thought police are everywhere..............

Well, Symonds did score more today than Martyn did in his final test, but I hardly think England are too bothered about his contribution!

We will see it is only the frist day. It is a bit of a rush to judgement to say we can judge a players contribution on the first day.
Harmison has played two Tests and one day in this series and has been appaling surely that is a better time span for judging someone?

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction