Well Hussain has said that he might decide to retire now, which would solve the problem. Personally I hope that he doesn't. He batted really well today, and fielded brilliantly throughout the match.

I can't agree with you about Thorpe being the only world-class batsman we have, Peter K.

Michael Vaughan was the number one batsman in the world - according to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers rankings published on 13th April 2003. His batting average was 50.93. Not too shoddy...

I'm unsure on the Read/Jones arguement. Jones is certainly a much classier batsman, but he's a messy keeper. Certainly his batting more than compensates for a few byes, but if he drops people who then score a hundred it will be a different matter.

Anyway, these are nicer 'problems' than the English team has had in a good while!