The major impression I have of the series is that whilst our batting has been dire, it is our attack that is the real problem. The pommy batsmen were shown up on the few occasions we bowled well. Siddle bowled a great spell in Brisbane and put us in a great position, and Notch and Harris bowled almost unplayable spells in Perth to win a test. We showed then that the English batsmen could be knocked over if you bowled well. The problem was the England bowlers bowled good probing bowling almost constantly, we bowled three good innings. Not only would none of our bowlers make the England side, none of them would even be in the first 2 or 3 reserves. Anderson, Broad, Finn, Swann, Tremlett and Bresnan have all shown that they have more to offer than our bowlers.
Hilfenhaus must surely have had enough chances to show he can be a wicket taker, Siddle has probably shown enough to persist with, but he's change bowler, and Johnson? f**k has their been a more frustrating player in history? Perth was as deadly a spell of quick bowling as you will see, but everything else has been somewhere between barely acceptable and utter trash. He has to go - he won't of course, but I can't see how we can possibly go forward with such an inconsistent player. If he'd been the fourth bowler in the side when we had McGrath, Warne and Dizzy he would have struggled because the other three would have cleaned them up when conditions suited his bowling, and he would have been belted when conditions favoured the batsmen. If he just came out and took regular solid 3/90s you'd stick with him but the rocks and diamonds (very rare diamonds) nature of Johnson can't be tolerated any more. He's played 42 tests. If he was ever going to become the leader of our attack he would have done so by now.
