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Bevan was hardly impressive against the Windies - he scratched around and certainly didnt play his natural game.Hard to say that about someone who played in the manner in which he did against Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop in 96/97. I do think that his weaknesses against the short ball are exaggerated by many. One would think the WI would have no problems exposing those weaknesses down under of all places. Instead, his short ball weaknesses were supposedly exposed by Gough and Headley of all bowlers
If that was the case then he should have been dropped right after the 2003 world cup and not played as many games after that. The fact that they waited until he had a bad series before they could drop him suggests that they were looking for an excuse to drop him.
He was constantly checking his guard, wandering around the crease practicing his shots and ignoring his usual scoring opportunities - it was pretty painful to watch
IMO, the main thing that proved to me that mentally he didnt have it at test level was the fact that he got out to bouncers.
Put those same bowlers up against him in fc and he murdered them every day of the week. In tests, he went so far into his shell that he basically became shotless and got himself into all sorts of strange positions