Harsh on Giles I reckon. He was a good one day cricketer; did his job. Early signs suggest Swann could well be better but Giles was most certainly better than some of those who have replaced him in the 30 (like Tredwell).
I don't think Giles was particularly a
good one-day international cricketer TBH - there were plenty worse (and Tredwell is emphatically one of them - I just hope and pray he never plays a ODI) but if England were going to get anywhere he wasn't someone who could be relied upon.
I suppose it's fair to exclude his
first 5 games as I generally tend to do such a thing when it's divorced from the rest of a career, but even so, he was hardly an outstanding player. For starters, he was supposedly a decent lower-order bat, which was for a while
very far from the truth, then
a little more true then for a short time towards the end
a little more true again.
Then to the suit which really mattered - his bowling.
In 2000/01 he went OK (4 games, ER 4.21-an-over, average 46.33);
In 2001/02 he was mostly poor (8 games, ER 4.76-an-over, average 33.33);
In the summer of 2002 and the autumn of 2002/03 he was poor bar a couple of games at Lord's (7 games, ER 5.23-an-over, average 32.86; excluding the two Lord's games 5 games, ER 6-an-over, average 72)
In the summer of 2003 he started poorly (first 5 games producing an ER of 4.26-an-over and an average of 175) before doing better at the very end (last 2 games producing 10-29-0 and 3-3-2);
Then his only particularly good work came in the summer of 2004 (8 games, 2 in which he didn't bowl, ER 3.5-an-over, average 25.57);
In 2004/05 and the summer of 2005 he was pretty poor (13 games, ER 4.52-an-over, average 55.33).
Really, I think Giles' worth in ODI cricket was overestimated. For someone who mostly took so few wickets, he had to be conceding less than 4-an-over, and he wasn't. Even though he was almost always bowled at the right times (outside Powerplays, not at the death).