Blame inept players for Ashes debacle, not sacked coach Mickey Arthur

COMMENT: Mickey Arthur is back in Australia this week amid rumours he will be named as the man responsible for the asylum-seeker crisis.

Mickey Arthur

MICKEY Arthur is back in Australia this week as rumours circulate he will be named as the man responsible for the asylum-seeker crisis.

And that's only part of the story.

Apparently, the Greens are urging the sacked Australian cricket coach to confess it was his deodorant spray that punched a hole in the ozone layer and triggered global warming.

None of these rumours are true but hey, who cares? Mickey Arthur can cop it. He's used to it.

Arthur may have had his shortcomings, but how the world loves a scapegoat, a man whose nose we can gleefully rub in the dirt because it stops us from looking at the place we loathe most - the mirror.

In the blissful three-week period between Arthur's sacking and the second Ashes Test, Australia have been living in a fool's paradise where the systematic denigration of Arthur created the impression one man alone was responsible for the slide in our cricketing fortunes.

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Never mind the fact that we couldn't bat (shhhhhh) and the captain and his allrounder have been at loggerheads long before Arthur arrived. That Arthur was a foreigner with few genuine ties here made it a deliciously neat cut when he had to be ejected from the system, for no state or person was aggrieved by his axing.

With the Australian side's disciplinary levels fading with their performances, Arthur, it was reasoned, had to be the problem. Surely, it could not have been - gulp - us?

Certainly, Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland had no doubts where the blame rested.

In the days before the second Test, he spoke about how Australia were a "different team" in a "different place" since the change of coach.

"I'm talking about the whole team environment," Sutherland said. "You can see it in the way they're moving around the hotel, you can see the way they're walking on to the ground."

If only cricket Tests were decided by who walks out on to the ground with more purpose or how you strut around a team hotel.

What a shame that at some point, you actually have to face a ball.

Morale may be high in the Australian side, but from afar it looks as if they still have a way to go before they truly believe in each other.

You can see it in simple things like edges repeatedly sailing between the keeper and first slip when neither have the confidence to dive for it.

The lack of trust is also evident in their use of the referral system, where some players seem to be reluctant to challenge another's personal opinion.

This England team is far from flawless, but collective batting statistics paint them in an attractive light.

Where they have five members of their top six averaging over 46, Australia have just one, Michael Clarke, averaging over 36.

This is a chasm made up, not from random analysis, but the hardcore evidence of more than 700 Tests.

Joe Root's century at Lord's should be a crucial reference point for Australia's cricketing development, because it showcased precisely the type of player Australia have been unsuccessfully trying to produce.

When a young Michael Hussey came on to the first-class scene, he made a name for being a player with the best "leave" in Australian cricket.

He won the admiration of old sweats such as Jason Gillespie by leaving their most dangerous work pass just outside or above their stumps. There are no young players renowned for that skill now.

With the "get bat on ball" mantra an essential part of Twenty20 and 50-over cricket, players are actually encouraged to do the opposite.

As a boy, Hussey was a small player who lacked power, so he built his game on patience and precision. Modern players can hit a ball further than Hussey with their eyes closed - but when the ball starts swinging or seaming or bouncing to unexpected heights, their radar scrambles, while his was always tuned to the most subtle nuance.

He absorbed bowling attacks rather than trying to obliterate them.

England are not an exciting team to watch, but I just love their application and teamwork.

Apart from Bangladesh, they are the slowest scoring Test team in the world. They don't crash-tackle you like Australian teams captained by Steve Waugh.

They grab your shoelace and hang on for dear life and when you start to wobble, they put a hand around your knee and eventually you fall.

Not pretty. But pretty effective.