Valer
First Class Debutant
Obviously the issue with Clark is he wasn't selected before Gillespie retired.Seen in isolation I would have to agree with Valer that Brett Lee was overated.
However, bowlers don't act in isolation. They are part of a quartet.
In my opinion, Brett worked like a charm with McGrath because his pace contrasted the slower bowling of McGrath very nicely. McGrath 'worked' the batsman out, Lee 'bounced' them out.
Lee was also a very handy batsman and a good team man. The sum of his parts was always greater than his whole. Something obviously you don't necessarily see in raw stats.
For the other pace bowlers this simply isn't the case, they actually performed about the same or worse(!) with Lee.
With Mcgrath
Reiffel
All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
Flemming
All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
Lee
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
With Gillespie
Reiffel
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
Fleming
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
Lee
Bowling records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo
Re non bowling issues
Flemming was similar to Lee, with Reiffel being a noticably better batsman than Lee.
Other that than are you really arguing that Lee's fielding was worth 4-5 point of bowling average?
Nb: the if he'd been instructed to bowl something else argument* is as bad as if they'd been in the team for longer re: total wickets.
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