Except Marsh came in at 6, with not much batting after him (indeed they collapsed when he was finally out), and was dropped on 12 and scored 118. His partner was also dropped early on having sscore 9 and ended up scoring 39. They put on 155. So I can't agree with any of that.
You make a good point. Just looked at his record and it's worse than I thought. I was there last year (maybe two years ago?) when he was well set at the Oval and played an awful shot to get caught (in an ainnings saved by Woakes). Still, on his day and all that....
Woakes and Ali can both hold a bat. Wood can attack on his day. We might apporach parity with them when 200 SHOULD have got us a lead in this test. You can talk about the batting/style all you want but the fielding has been poor hasn't it.