No-one's saying England have better reserves than Australia. Simply that Australian domestic teams do not have large numbers - or even 4 or 5 - bowlers who would be good Test bowlers if pitched into Test cricket.
I'm entirely aware of his age, thanks. I was just wondering why you think he's not as good a bowler as Stuart Broad when he's so obviously much better.
For most of Dirk Nannes' adult life, cricket has been an afterthought. He used to play a couple of club games at the start of the season, a handful at the end, and in between travel the world pursuing his other passion, skiing. He was no run-of-the-mill ski bum - he competed for several years in World Cup skiing events and narrowly missed selection for the Australian Winter Olympics team in the late 1990s. But when he started to take his cricket seriously, he quickly grabbed the attention of Victoria's selectors. It led to a first-class debut at 29 in 2005-06.Richard said:
This post is laughable.
Pffft. Hardly a credible argument to use the worst selectorial decision in recent memory as an example of England's general standard of bowling.
Well to be fair, he did dominate county cricket, to warrant a selection. Funny how no other Englishmen could do the same at that point in time, eh?
He didn't dominate county cricket, that was what was so left-field about it. Pattinson was well down the rankings- see for yourself. And that's only in Division One.
Only one bowler took more wickets at a lower average?
I think it was Goughy here who said that while Pattinson is far from the worst player to play for England in recent times, he was surely the worst selection. It reeked of the lack of a long-term plan, it was an insult to county cricketers who had been turning in performances for years only to have an England place given to a 29-year-old Australian who'd only played a few FC games- and not even done THAT well. He was then promptly discarded after one game and completely forgotten about, as if to say "we ballsed up". Shoddy treatment of Pattinson himself, and the words of "bringing in a new player upset the dressing room" just suggested that the side had become a cosy little club. Amid all these problems, the other thing that's often forgotten is that Pattinson wasn't even the best man for the job- far from it.
???Only one bowler took more wickets at a lower average?
Most of those could only play for Bangladesh or the West Indies IMO.
Clark (if he's still as good as he was pre-injury) and Siddle as well IMO.
Pfft, Aus are waaaaaaaay better at poor selections. Picking Cam White in India as a bowling all-rounder, for example. At least Pattinson was picked to do a job he actually does for his club.
What the? The two bowlers you pick from SA weren't even regulars in FC cricket last year!
Err, and how many of those were realistic prospects for that test match at Leeds?
This surely has to be some sort of joke? Australia for the first time managed to string together a competent attack since the retirement of Mcgrath and Warne against SA this year, and that was only because Johnson managed to improve his bowling beyond bounds.
Any team would die to have either Siddle or Clark in there side.
All seven of the English bowlers listed, and more that I have not mentioned, would have been better picks than Pattinson.