couldnt happen to nicer bloke, page-118

I don't agree with you that we don't have a McGrath. We certainly don't have a Shane Warne. I think Stuart Clark is doing the job that McGrath did for so long. What we are missing is someone to do the job that Kasprowicz and Reiffel did between them in the decade up to the 2005 Ashes. That is a third seamer who could tie up an end (even if they were never going to take a bucketload of wickets) whilst the likes of McGrath, Gillespie and Warne were taking a rest.

I don't think Australia will be the best in the world for much longer. Unlike you I think we are lacking in depth, certainly in the bowling department. IMO Johnson is a bit too wayward and inconsistent to be taking the new ball and Tait seems to be a loose cannon. And Symonds might be an ordinary bowler but I'm not too sure we have any better spin bowlers apart from MacGill (and he's 36+). I'm not sure I like the suggestion of McGain as he would only be a bandaid solution given he is 35. Unfortunately we seem to be suffering the same problem in the Pura Cup that the English did for many years in the county championship - a surplus of mediocre medium and fast medium bowlers who either aren't suited to the step up to test cricket or are going to need a while to adapt and a shortage of spin bowlers and genuine quicks. A major reason for this I think is the fact that the game has been more and more oriented towards batsmen, with flatter wickets, overly restrictive rules relating to bouncers and short-pitched bowling, constant shortening of boundaries and more and more limited overs cricket + 20-20 where the focus is on containment rather than taking wickets - plus who on earth would want to be a bowler in 20-20 anyway?

Batting wise whilst we have plenty of 28-33 year olds making lots of runs, Luke Pomersbach is the only under 25 year old with more than 400 first-class runs this season, so I'm not sure the long term future is looking too good there either.