A good decision for Australian cricket

IT was obvious something had to give with the Australian cricket team. It was going to be either the coach Mickey Arthur or the players.

IT was obvious something had to give with the Australian cricket team. It was going to be either the coach Mickey Arthur or the players. Even from a distance there was a palpable and unworkable tension between management and the men selected to bring back the Ashes.

Initially, Cricket Australia backed the coach and rightly so, because under Arthur the side was winning more Tests than it was losing. As the tour in India at the tail of summer just gone went from awful to you-have-to-be-kidding, Cricket Australia agreed to four players being stood down for a Test match because they had not completed an assignment set for them by Arthur.

It was not an unreasonable request. Gather your thoughts on how the side is travelling and how you might contribute to a better team effort. Shane Watson, the touring party vice-captain, was one of four who did not bother or forgot to complete the rather elementary task.

Mostly, Arthur was condemned for over-reacting. Commentators had fun drawing the coach as the teacher incapable of disciplining an unruly class of cheeky pupils. A minority saw it as a necessary but overdue show of strength to a squad of players who had little professional edge, arriving late for buses, training poorly and basically just pleasing themselves.

When David Warner was goaded into his childish tweeting breakdown and then took a swing at Englishman Joe Root early on a Birmingham morning, Cricket Australia was criticised for not being more ruthless. The majority thought nothing short of sending Warner home was appropriate.

And now it is the coach who has lost the lot, if not the plot. Arthur has been fingered as the reason Australia was embarrassed in India, the hitch that meant the side could not win one match in the Champions Trophy and the wall that left the players deaf to his requests for increased responsibility and intensity.

It cannot have helped that captain Michael Clarke, the one player in the side who can at least lead by example and from the front, has had his back pampered back in London. While he did not watch the Australians play themselves out of the Champions Trophy in Birmingham, he was able to get to a charity game for Liz Hurley and Shane "I kinda look cute in this" Warne. When your team is coming off a drubbing in India and is defending trophy-holder of the limited over competition, attendance should have been compulsory for the skipper.

Presumably, he must have known the cricket board back home was becoming increasingly uneasy with Arthur's performance. Clarke, sore back and all, should have been on guard if not taking guard with the team.

There is an argument to be made that James Sutherland and Pat Howard have made the easier decision. That is to boot the coach and not the irascible and irresponsible players within the touring party.

Arthur's record with South Africa - he was coach from 2005 until 2010 - was sound but he had players who did not need coaching. The side played as though its collective brain and spirit had been chiselled by its captain Graeme Smith, a ruthless competitor. Under him he had cricketers of the quality and tenacity of Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn.

Compare both the earned and innate professionalism of that group to the Australian squad that includes Warner, Watson, Usman Khawaja, Phil Hughes and Steve Smith, who might all at one stage of the Test series be Australia's batting line-up - with Clarke included, of course. That is a touring party that has to be coached and managed. Smith's South African mob just had to be dropped off and picked up.

Clarke's decision to stand down as a selector is overdue. It was a mistake to name the captain on the selection panel.

His input to the make-up of Australian teams is important but his vote can be seen as poisonous by his teammates. Added to that unhealthy mix has been the lucky dip that was tagged by chairman of selectors John Inverarity as informed player management.

Such uncertainty can be torture to the nerves and self confidence of cricketers.

Sportsmen like to belong, and yo-yo selection is a certain killer of form.

By the time the ramifications of Arthur's dumping had been considered and evaluated last evening, it was commonly considered Australian cricket was in turmoil, tatters and disarray.

It is none of that. A correction in settings was required and has been made. Wrongs have been made right. The goal remains the same and the chances of achieving it increased.

June 24, a good day for Australian cricket.