Shane Watson retires from Test Cricket

I was never sure if Watson's 59 Test were more testament to how far you can get if you can convince enough people that you "have something" or an indictment of Australia's reserves. Still, always liked the guy, and wish him all the best in ODI and T20 where he's as good as they come

Rohit sharma of Australia

Bit unfair KP. For a while he was a very effective opener for australia, in an era where theyve really struggled to find any. His bowling too has been very valuable at times, and allowe them to ballance the side.
Id also say that whilst its taken forever for Aus to get round to dropping him, unlike Sharma, its not as if there was someone demanding his place...the test side has a few people who are place sitters or desperation picks (mind Rogers worked out far better than anyone expected). He probably shouldnt have been selected for the first Ashes test ahead of Marsh, but them Marsh was equally as useless through the series as it turned out.

Id say more the Ian Bell of Australia, his retirement being the equivelant of Bells from ODIS. A guy whos had his glory days but was clearly shot in the format, hung around like a bad smell for a while, and arguably should be calling it a day all round before someone takes pity and puts a bullet in his head.

Sad way to go, this isnt a tour he will remember fondly. He has he fair share of haters in australia who will be glad to see the back of him though.

As a test player he often was "punished" for his versatility. even so he counts as a genuine all-rounder with a batting average higher than his bowling one.

As a batsman he was moved up and down the order, being most effective as an opener where his average was almost 6 runs higher than his career. He was a decent test player, filling in wherever Australia needed him.

He has been a world class ODI player - but not retired from that arena (yet)

I think Watson suffers from a bit of a bad press ; perhaps because he often seemed to promise more than he delivered , and also because he was unfortunate enough to be associated with a few bad series for Australia ; he maybe arrived at the wrong time !
His actual Test figures aren't bad ; if his bowling was never overtly dangerous he nevertheless often did a handy holding job to allow the strike bowlers proper rest.
As an opening bat he had a habit of getting thirty five ...or perhaps sixty ...but never really going on. That and the lbw habit (amplified by his constant , and generally fruitless , use of the review system to try and overturn the decisions) seem to stick in the memory more than the number of quite solid starts he actually gave Australia.
He was certainly shot by this year though - was one of a number of poor selections , to be honest. Should not have played at Cardiff. As LT says above , he was moved around the order , often to his detriment ; and even his use on this tour did him no favours.

As an ODI player he was in another class - and he still looks pretty handy. Might well have a bit of time to boost that part of his record...good luck to him.

Shane Watson had all the talent and class, but injuries were always going to take their toll in a bad way... had injury not struck and he had been able to bowl more he would have taken well more than 75 test wickets..

He may well go down as the most reluctant looking bowler ever - guy looks like he hates it!