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Originally Posted by greg
The problem has not primarily been the batsmen, it has been the bowlers. Any captain can be made innocuous if his attack lets him down, as Stephen Fleming showed last year. And any batting attack will be made to look poor, if they struggle where the opposition consistently make hay because of weak bowling (as is repeatedly the case with the Windies).
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Eh, I disagree. I think the bowling has been pretty good, although obviously the fact that the attack has changed every game and Gillespie has been woeful hasn't helped, Warne has been excellent and McGrath, Lee and Tait have all been good enough. The problem is the batting, because when England have bowled well Australia have gone to pieces and haven't made a single large score in the series despite three of the four wickets being flat. When Australia has bowled well, most of the time England have done okay, maybe lost a wicket or two but come out the other same and still made a score. England have outbowled Australia, but the difference in my mind has been relatively small. Australia's fielders have let down the bowlers consistently, but the bowling hasn't been that bad.
What has been genuinely poor is the batting. England have bowled well, yes, but good batsmen should be able to face good bowling on a true, flat pitch and survive to make runs, and Australia excluding a couple of people haven't been able to do that, while England have, despite the fact that guys like Ponting, Martyn, Gilchrist and Langer are normally more reliable than their English counterparts.