two shanes are better than one

Watson - Australia's Flintoff?

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By Dave Tickner

His name's Shane, he's got blond hair, he's never shy of a word or two and he might just be Australia's key man in this Ashes series.

And his surname begins with W, to stretch my now rather laboured point yet further.

But this Shane has just three Test matches and two wickets to his name.

While everyone in England is painfully aware of the threat posed by a certain Mr Warne, the other Shane in their squad - Watson - could yet prove to be the difference between the two sides.

In England last year, Australia stubbornly persisted with four bowlers, even when it was clearly not working.

They are unlikely to make the same mistake again, and Watson is the man best placed to take advantage.

He's not in Andrew Flintoff's class with bat or ball, but he is the closest thing Australia possess.

His batting is good enough that he has been opening the batting in the Champions Trophy, admittedly with mixed results, while his bowling is at the slippery end of medium pace, and improving all the time.

Tellingly, Australia coach John Buchanan has been talking Watson up, claiming the Queenslander has made "big strides" with both bat and ball since the last Ashes series, when Watson wasn't even in the squad.

He's good enough to bat at number six in Test cricket - his first-class batting average is over 50 - and give Australia many more options in their bowling ranks.

With Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee certain to play along with Warne, Watson's presence gives Australia the chance to include a genuinely exciting fourth seamer like Mitchell Johnson or Shaun Tait or, perhaps more worrying for England, play two spinners.

Stuart MacGill is the second-best legspinner in world cricket today, and Warne showed last summer that England still don't play it all that well.

There's an old cliché in sport; do what your opponent wants least.

I'd suggest that a bowling attack of Lee, McGrath, Watson, Warne and MacGill is the one England would least like to encounter in Brisbane three weeks from now.