Nah, Boult-Southee can ultimately be replaced by Wheeler/Milne or whoever. Doug Bracewell is currently first reserve as well.
Taylor gets replaced by Martin Guptill or....well exactly.
See South Africa for details.
The answer for England is still Anderson, not Cook or Swann or Prior or anyone else.With South Africa I think Graeme Smith is the most important because there is already a significant drop from him to his opening partner Alviro Petersen. Remove Smith and replace him with someone who is at best the same as Alviro (though since Elgar is an opener and has made the test team this is optimistic) and South Africa look vulnerable. Alviro is better than people give him credit for but he isn't going to set the world on fire either.
The same logic goes for Cook.
Not only do I totally agree with this post, but I would also like to submit it as evidence that England's overwhelming favoritism to win the ashes stands on rather shaky ground. If Anderson doesn't bring his 'A' game to that series I think England will struggle to win.The answer for England is still Anderson, not Cook or Swann or Prior or anyone else.
an attack of Broad, Finn, Bresnan and Swann on paper still looks very good but it wouldn't work. We had a similar attack against Sri Lanka at Lord's (swap Bresnan for Tremlett) and they got smashed. Jimmy was crap at the Oval against South Africa, we got flogged. Jimmeh was average in New Zealand, the rest of the attack was average.
England's strength is in the bowling and the bowling relies to a ridiculous degree on one man. Anderson is England's most irreplacable player, end of story.
He doesn't need to bring his A game - Broad and Bresnan bowled magnificently around him against India at home (as did Tremlett and Bresnan in the last Ashes) but if Anderson doesn't turn up at all I don't have faith in the rest of the bowling attack to step up.Not only do I totally agree with this post, but I would also like to submit it as evidence that England's overwhelming favoritism to win the ashes stands on rather shaky ground. If Anderson doesn't bring his 'A' game to that series I think England will struggle to win.