Alec Stewart would not have made the Australian side as a specialist batsman, Les Ames would not have made it either as a specialist batsman in Australia. 40 in test cricket is not good enough for a specialist batsman, 45+ is a good batsman and for most of his career Gilchrist was well over 50. He averaged over 60 for a long time. Where now the same sort of pressure is put on wicketkeepers since Gilchrist jumped onto the scene

Just look at the two side Australia and India

Jaques - 50.53
Hayden - 53.51
Ponting - 58.53
Hussey - 78.14
Clarke - 46.45
Symonds - 41.24
Gilchrist - 47.60

Sehwag - 50.46
Dravid - 55.11
Tendulkar - 55.57
Ganguly - 42.45
Laxman - 44.20
Dhoni - 34.31
Pathan - 29.74

The Specialist batsman except Ganguly and Laxman all average over 45.

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Bill Ponsford - The only one who could play in Bradman’s company and make it a duet.

First of all, Les Ames played in the 1930s. An average of 40 back then was not the same as an average of 40 now. And another thing. You say that good batsmen do not average 40, they must average over 45. In your opinion, where does that place batsmen like Mark Waugh, Ian Chappell, Desmond Haynes, Graham Gooch and Les Ames, all of whom could very easily have averaged well above 45 if they played today?

Maybe - maybe not, what I can say is that Stewart walked into the England team as an opening batsman, and Q he did not hide in the middle order - he faced the best of the quicks with ease.

He in fact only dropped down the order when he was made keeper and the selectors thought it was to much to ask for him to open the batting as well, in fact Englands batting suffered when Stewart moved down the order - Atherton was lost without him IMO.
He would probably have had a better average had he played against the lesser attacks of this decade, in fact it's not certains he would not have got into any side IMO.

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Ern

Actually, Stewart might well have made the Australian side of the mid-90s, before Ponting came along. It was pretty settled with Boon at 3, Junior at 4 and Tugga at 5, but 6 was split between Greg Blewett and Michael Bevan. Stewart's average of 39 was far superior to Blewett's 34 and Bevan's 29. In fact, Blewett and Matthew Elliot shared the opening job with not much success after the retirement of Taylor, so he may have got in there as well.

IN fairness.... when Les Ames made his debut it was alongside Jack Hobbs, who averaged 56.94, Herbert Sutcliffe who averaged 60.73, and Wally Hammond, who averaged 58.45... and when he played his final Test, Hammond was still there and Hobb's place had been taken by Hutton, who averaged 56.67 - but you are looking there at four of the greatest 10 batsmen in the history of the game!

Jim Parks played a bit later... but started life as a specialist bat. On debut he batted at 6 (with Evans taking the gloves) and played alongside two other great batsmen: Peter May (46.77) and Dennis Compton (started in the 1930s. averaged 50+). Parks ended his career playing alongside Barrington (averaged 58.67) and Boycott (averaged 47.72).

I'm not suggesting Les Ames is in that class... any more than others would suggest Gilchrist is in Ponting's class... but Ames racked up 37,248 runs at 43.51 from 593 1st class games with 102 centuries and 176 fifties - to suggest he was anything less than an genuine top order batsman is disingenuous.

Did Dujon not make his debut for West Indies as a batsman alone, top scoring in one of the innings?

It does not matter whether any player would get into the australian side of 2000. What matters, is whether a wicket keeper would get into the side that he plays for as a batsman alone. That was the point made, and it has happened on a number of occasions over the history of cricket. Keepers have always been able to bat pretty well on a whole, one can think of Lindsay in the great South African side, Gilchrist was just better than anyone else. As I said, Dujon outscored Haynes and Gomes between 81 and 86 (before his batting form dipped considerably) so he was clearly a batsman who also had the golves.

His first 2 Tests, Milo.

Well, all I can say is THANK GOD he's gone, he caused the International game an awful lot of problems, particularly for other international sides having to play Australia.

Don't get me wrong though, I have an awful lot of admiration for Gilchrist in many diffferent ways but he was capable of being a very destructive batsman, particularly at the lower order number he came in at, and is one of the reasons in my mind Australia have been able to be so dominant for so long.

I'm sure many Australia fans will point to Brad Haddin as a worthy replacement, but Haddin is not a shadow of the player Gilchrist was and unlikely to ever be. The jury is still out on him.

Australias era of Cricket dominance is very much at an end in my mind, most of their big player names have now gone and they're no where near as dangerous now as they were, although I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me.

The next few years will be very interesting, particularly in how Australia adapt to losing their big players as I've seen little evidence of them having successfully replaced those big players.

Clark is no McGrath, I don't care what anyone says, and McGill is no Warne either and he's 36 or 37. Haddin is no Gilchrist either.

England are still way behind even this weakened Australia side sadly, but hopefully some of the other front runners (India, Pakistan, SA) can up their game and teach them a lesson or two.

The future looks bright, because the future is NOT Australia.

Australia's retirement of players is alarmingly similar to that of the West Indies in the mid-late 80s-early 90s.

Lloyd retired (as did Steve Waugh). Their top batsman took over the captain's job. The West Indies lost two leading bowlers (Garner and Holding) but pretty much replaced them (with Ambrose and Walsh). Australia lost two top players (in Gillespie and Waugh M) but also replaced them with Hussey and Clark. The Oval 91 saw the last test match of four WIndies players (Richards, Greedidge, Marshall and Dujon). Last year we saw Warne, Langer and McGrath retire on the same day. Gilchrist has now gone to echo the Dujon retirement.

The West Indies required Haynes to stick around for a few more years than he did. This is where the WIndies selectors were really silly. Dropping him because he didn't play the requisite number of first class games was criminal. As we saw a couple of weeks ago, Australia MUST ensure that they keep Hayden as long as possible. Otherwise Australia might see themselves with openers who are as effective as Lambert and Wallace (or even Williams and Campbell) were.

Of course, if took Australia (or anyone else) 1995 to finally beat the West Indies (of course, Australia will find their new players, just as WIndies did with Lara (replacing Richards), Kenny Benjamin and Chanderpaul) but some players (not necessarily their best) never got replaced.

Greenidge and Dujon (and an effective skipper) were not replaced. McGrath, Warne and Gilchrist simply cannot be replaced (and they were Australia's best).

It is very, very interesting.

Very interesting indeed.

I'm certainly not writing off Australia - they're still a very good side, they just don't have those superstar players that could turn and win games on their own - which basically means they're going to have to work a lot harder for their wins.

And that's already been shown in the series against India, you always know Australia are rattled when they start over-appealing or relying on Umpiring decisions to go their way which they've been doing recently.

The accusations of bad sportsmanship in the current series against India didn't surprise me in the least - it's what they do when things are not going their way - they try and force them to go their way.

And it's not that India are all that great either. A 1-2 loss away from home should really have been a series draw against this current Australian side. They beat England in England, but that's not that difficult at the moment - most of the top 3 or 4 sides will turn England over at the moment - Moores hasn't got a clue how to play Test Cricket - Bopara as a Test allrounder? Please, what an earth was that numpty thinking?

So Moores knows a little bit about ODI, but I don't want that at the expense of Test Cricket thanks!

I'm pleased because I beleive Australias 20 odd years of Cricket dominance is about to end and they'll have to scrap and fight for their wins just like anyone else - it's a more even playing field now than it's ever been - and that in my mind can only be good for Test and ODI Cricket.

It's just a shame in my mind that just as Australias side are weakening and at their most vulnerable - Englands current Test side doesn't seem to have a clue and probably won't whilst Moore is in charge, so don't hold your breath.

Just you wait for the 'we're re-building' 'it takes time' etc bull that's going to start emerging from the England camp to make up for Moores' shortfalls, although getting shot of Graveney was a step in the right direction.