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Listed below are comments made by underthepump between Friday, 26th June 2009 and Tuesday, 11th August 2009.

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How England can win the Ashes 02:42am on 11 Aug 2009 You only need to make subtle changes to have a big impact on the side.

England called up Onions between Cardiff and Lords. Australia dropped Hughes for Watson between Lords and Egbaston and then replaced Hauritz with Clark for Headingley. Onions, Watson and Clark all contributed in a big way in the reversal of their teams fortunes from the previous test(s).

From an Australian point of view, if I were an English selector, I would bring Flintoff back in for Harmison and drop Bell for a proper number 3 and move Bopara to 5, he is fair dinkum out of his depth at 3. That is all that is required.
No instant impact from Hauritz 04:51am on 26 Jun 2009 Krejza got carted in the tour match in India and the selectors crapped themselves and rushed Cameron White, of all people over, to the sub continent and started him in the first test as a bowler. Australia can't make this mistake again, they have to stick with their initial plan and not panic because a player has had one bad outing. The pitch is supposed to be a turner first up so Hauritz must play.

England won the ashes with Giles, South Africa beat us with Harris. The bowling attack is more than the sum of it's parts.

A spinner provides two purposes 1) It reduces the workload on the pace bowlers, important when the lot of them are injury prone and 2) It helps with the over rate situation, which we have always had an issue with since Ponting has been captain. Clarke and Katich have a dodgy back and shoulder respectively and can't carry the burden of bowling on top of the key role the two of them need to play with the bat.

The first test attack should be Johnson, Siddle, Clark, Hauritz. Then pitch conditions and the performance of the individual bowlers comes into play. If the pitch is conducive to swing, we can play the 4 quicks with Hilfenhaus coming into the side for Hauritz.

As far as I'm concerned Lee should be left right out. We lost in India with him, lost the first two tests in Aus v. SA with him, yet won the third test in Aus v. SA without him and won the away series against SA without him. That is more than a co-incidence in my opinion.

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