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Originally Posted by Cactus Sid
They need to bump Pietersen up to number 4 and see if he can get a partnership with Vaughan and Trescothick going. If you've got either of them having a good match, scoring steadily as they can, with Pietersen backing up and slogging, then England have a chance. Sadly everytime he comes to the crease he has to deal with Flintoff forgetting that its not a one day game, Jones, who is just not good enough for the test side and then all the tail-enders. Ian Bell is a waste of a place. They should've picked Thorpe and Pietersen and bumped Flintoff down the order.
Simply enough, the openers just have to deal with McGrath and Lee, and then when Warne comes on, play defensive, if they get a few nicks to Gilchrist it won't matter, because Pietersen knows how to play him.
Its easy to jump on the Pietersen bandwagon, but at the end of the day, if he's out there playing with an experienced batsman, he wont have to worry about losing the strike, which is the reason everything was rounded up so quickly today. He can play spin, he can defend against pace, he just doesn't have the experience to lead others through an innings. Hence, he needs to be in at number 4, like Thorpe would've been.
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I dunno, i can't disagree with the selection. Bell had two fine innings against Bangladesh and didn't warrant dropping, it may only be Bangladesh, but even so the opposition has to be beaten. It would have been nice if Thorpe hadn't retired though, we could've done with him for the 2nd test. We drop the experienced Thorpe and they keep the "past it" McGrath and Warne in and they destroy us, that's the way it goes i guess
Gilchrist isn't the best wicket keeper with the gloves either, but scores runs, so Jones is quite like him. I think he matched Gilchrist's score over the innings aswell. Chris Read seems to be the main contender but he was found wanting at Test level, Matt Prior wouldn't be a bad shout though.
Flintoff, Vaughan and Bell need to improve on their batting. He's a good captain but you can't carry people who have innings like Vaughan's been having, especially against Australia.