Watson vindicated

That's my boy. What did I say? I always knew he had it in him. An Ashes 176. Raise the bat, and be proud. You deserve it, Watto.

It looked like his Test career was nosediving, but then he goes and does that. A testament to the fact that Shane Watson really is a quality batsman - he really does have the ability to flourish at Test level, as this muscular, manful innings has shown.

I doubt that will deter his detractors from insisting he be dropped, though. Watson polarises opinion among the Australian cricket-following fraternity: you either love him or hate him. And those who hate him really hate him. You get the sense that they want him to fail; you get the sense that his detractors were willing Watson to go cheaply again so they could continue in their smug denigration of him. Doubtless they'll make excuses to belittle his innings: he scored too fast, he hit too many boundaries, he was pretending to play one-day so it doesn't count, etc. Really pathetic.

Now let's see more of this, Watto, my lad.