dice said:
Watson replaced White as a batter, he replaced Johnson/Clark/Tait as the 4th seamer. If Johnson/Clark/Tait were there on Friday instead of Watson the aussies win, as simple as that. Probably would have been an irrecoverable spanking too.
Thats absolute bullsh*t. The 4 specialsist bowlers were McGrath/Bracken/Lee/Hogg, watson was the 5th. Your assertion taht if he was replaced by a specialist bowler we would have won, leaves us with a 5 man bowling attack, a formula that hasnt been used for a while and would have left our batting decidedly depleted. While in hidsight this didnt matter as we collapsed it does in the longer term. Your argument only works with a 5 man attack, if we play a 4 man attack and another batsman we would have had very little bowling (Clarke had a niggle and wasnt bowling), i dont know who you'd put at 7 but none of the options are good bowlers leaving Hussey and Hodge to bowl 10 overs. we can debate what if's till the cows come home, the fact is he played and we lost, not because of his bowling but because McGrath, Lee and Bracken also released pressure at cruicial time and a horrible batting collapse...
(We may still have lost with th 5 man attack, Clark, Johnson and Tait have all had expensive (off) games this season, who is to say they would have performed?)
