Back then though those guys showed they were good enough to play test cricket when given the chance. They just didn't get then chance very often/for very long in most cases.
When our 1st XI isn't going great then there's no excuse for not giving other guys a chance to perform.
Yep, you're spot on about the chances, because they had blokes like the Waugh twins, Ponting, Langer etc in front of them. I guess the thing was, as well, that a lot of those blokes didn't get a run simply because the incumbents rarely went long without performing.
With the bat, we've gotta be realisitic I suppose. For some reason they keep picking North, but everytime he is about to get dropped he performs - so in that sense he's hard to leave out without simply biting the bullet.
We don't have anyone really bashing the door down - the best bat outside the Test team by some distance is Hodge, but he's retired from first class stuff (and there will always be question marks about if he could handle the real hard stuff at the next level). Ferguson flatters to decieve while Khawaja only really has had 1 big summer - and not even a 1200 run big one yet. Hasn't done enough to knock over one of the imcumbents yet. For all his faults, North at least has shown in FC cricket that he can bat for a day and make big scores over a period of time.
The biggest reality is, though, with the ball. O'Keeffe was saying it this morning on ABC radio - the 3 quicks we've got are probably 1st change bowlers at Test level and we just don't have that spearhead that we can consistently turn to for a wicket with either the new or old ball (people will say Bollinger, but I reckon the length he bowls would have meant he copped the same treatment as the other bowlers this Test).
Oh, and Xavier Doherty ain't ever gonna be a Test cricketer. That's become painfully obvious, for all his value in the shorter forms of the game and the enthusiasm he offers, he'll never be particularly penetrative and is pretty hittable cause he doesn't turn them much, and doesn't have the flight and guile of a Vettori.