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Re Chris Marshall,

How sad that after all this time you still can't see that it was right that Giles played in the first Test of the last Ashes series instead of Panesar. How can you call yourself a cricket fan if you can't see that it wasn't simply a case of picking the best bowler but their ability as a batsman and a fielder had to be taken into consideration as well?

Duncan Fletcher quite rightly tried to pick as near as possible the team that had won the Ashes just fourteen months previously. Giles played in all five of the 2005 Ashes Tests and his match saving partnership with Pietersen on the last day of the final Test at the Oval clinched the Ashes. How could Fletcher possibly have preferred Panesar who had never played against Australia before? Panesar was being massively overhyped at the time. Even when Panesar did come in for Giles nothing changed. We still kept on losing.

Fletcher was also right to prefer Geraint Jones to Read. The important thing was that Jones and Giles had previously played in a winning team against Australia whereas Read and Panesar had never played against them.

Re Joey B linez,

So I presume you would have gone into the first Test of the last Ashes series with a tail of Read, Hoggard, Harmison, Panesar and Anderson. That would have been absolute madness. It doesn't matter how good the top six is, all top sixes need a tail they can have some sort of faith in. That tail wouldn't have inspired any faith in our top six. It would have just put them under extra pressure.

Duncan Fletcher said at the time we need to bat to eight and he was right. Don't forget the Australian tail was Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, Clark and McGrath. They certainly batted to eight. You could even argue they batted to ten. It wasn't simply a case of picking the best keeper and spinner. Perhaps there wasn't much to choose between Jones and Read's batting but Jones certainly had the edge at the time and Giles was undoubtedly a better batsman and fielder than Panesar.

You can't blame our defeat in the first three Tests of that series on the fact that Jones and Giles played in the first two and Jones also played in the third. There were umpteen reasons why we lost every Test in that series. It's easy to say nothing changed when Read and Panesar came in because we were demoralised. That's just an excuse. Read and Panesar were being massively overhyped at the time. Read hasn't played any international cricket since the end of that series and Panesar's aura of invincibility has gone.

Re joey B linez,

You say we were never going to take twenty wickets with the team Duncan Fletcher picked for the first two Ashes Tests last winter despite the fact it was as near as he could get to the team that had won the Ashes just fourteen months previously. There were five bowlers in that team and it batted to eight. Instead you would have gone in with four bowlers including Flintoff who had a dodgy ankle at the time and Panesar who had never played against Australia before. Flintoff's dodgy ankle was precisely the reason why we couldn't go in with four bowlers in that series. A four man attack would have resulted in an even more comprehensive defeat. If Flintoff had been fully fit your team would have made perfect sense, but because Flintoff wasn't fully fit we had to play Jones instead of Read and Giles instead of Panesar to strengthen the tail.

As for the Australian selectors never talking about their tail they don't need to when they've had the luxury of Gilchrist and Warne at seven and eight for years. They've also had reliable nines and tens such as Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Lee for years. That's another reason why Jones and Giles had to play instead of Read and Panesar. There was a time when England had reliable tail enders like Caddick and Gough but at the moment none of our best bowlers can hold a bat unfortunately.