The strength of your domestic competition is based on the depth you have below your national team, not the top six batsmen that play in that side. Im sure most people would recoginse that most county sides have 3-4 decent batsmen max. When you have guys like Andy Bichel batting at 6-7 it kind of tells you something about depth in sides.
Andrew Bichel was picked at number 7 for Australia in a test match in 2003, he's a better batsman than you may estimate.
His also batted at No 11 for Queensland, but generally his a 8 or 9 batsmen at best.
Other than him not being a slow bowler, I'd say Andy Bichel is about the closest you could get to Ashely Giles without actually being Ashley Giles. Dependable and versatile, occasionally brilliant, but normally one of the least fancied members of a side.
He was a far better bowler though, especially if you look at the back end of his career. He just had a lot more competition. In another era he would have played a lot more Test matches and been seen as one Australia top seamers. He could hold a spot on his bowling alone, regardless of what he did with the bat. They only batted him at 7, to try 5 bowlers, rather then cus they rated his batting highly.
Think Giles' accuracy was superior to Bichel's, TBH (Bichel wasn't always the most reliable around), but apart from that they had much in common.
Don't agree, Bichel wasn't a Test-class bowler IMO. He's probably rather better than the David Gilberts and Tony Dodemaides of this World but he's not a patch on the Reiffels, Flemings, Gillespies, Hugheses etc. and certainly not on the McDermotts, Reids and McGraths.
Post 2000 Bichel was on par with the Reiffels and Hugheses IMO, easierly Test Class:
Meh late 90s Reffiel and Fleming were at the peak, well maybe earlier. But im talking about when Bichel was at his peak Post 2000.
That was only from 14 Tests, though, 4 of which were against two of the most wretched and downtrodden sides in history (WI in 2000\01 and Pak in 2002\03). He offered little against England in 2002\03, West Indies in 2003 or against India in 2003\04.
The old taking out someone best performance and a player looks poor.
Lets do that to Giles, or wait they were the only matches he played on so-called useful pitches.
Cus those West Indies and Pakistan side were still Test standard, there have been plenty worse sides in World Cricket. If they weren't Test Standard then fair enough. Got no real problem if those sides were below Test Standard, not just below average.