We are now what England was, and they're laughing

IT has become a bit of a conversational theme that Australia is now to be described in all the ways that one used apply to England.

IT has become a bit of a conversational theme in cricket circles that Australia is now to be described in all the ways that one used apply to England: brittle, panicky, backward-glancing, inward-looking.

But not even England ever sacked its coach two weeks before an Ashes series. England would go through the rigmarole of garment-rending committees, reviews and reports ... then do what was always intended.

Australia? We are now officially hilarious. Just before our last Ashes series, Cricket Australia reappointed its then coach, Tim Nielsen, for three years, of which he ended up serving a year before being "restructured" out.

Now his successor, Mickey Arthur, has been "restructured" with extreme prejudice. Arthur survived five years as coach in politically tempestuous South Africa. He has not even lasted two in wealthy, secure, self-involved Australia. That tells you something - and not just about Arthur.

What did Arthur do wrong? On the scoreboard, until four months ago, not much. Australia under his coaching had at that stage won 10 Tests and lost two, and won 18 and lost 13 ODIs. But for James Pattinson playing an Adelaide Test he probably shouldn't have, Australia would at least have shared a series with the world's No 1 team.

Then came the retirements in short order of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey. Their presences would not have changed the ultimate custodian of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but it is difficult to imagine that communications between team and management would have broken down as abjectly as they did in India.

The mantle of disciplinarian did not settle readily on Arthur, an affable and sympathetic man.

Although his zeal was pardonable, the suspensions of Pattinson, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson highlighted problems without really resolving them, and the line in the sand lasted as long as the next tide.

Because the initially desultory then suddenly decisive response to David Warner going Walkabout suggested a house divided against itself.

It's been officially denied that Watson complained about the discrepant punishments handed out in what has become known as Homeworkgate and what has surprisingly not become known as Warnergate - which does call to mind Claude Cockburn's injunction not to believe anything until it is officially denied.

But, frankly, Watson would have been well within his rights to feel exactly the way that he ... errrr ... officially didn't.

Did this, though, merit Arthur's defenestration? After all, it's not Arthur's fault that there were half as many centuries scored in last season's Sheffield Shield as there were 20 years earlier. Nor is it Arthur's doing that Australian cricket's rewards system sets greater store by scoring 20 off 10 balls than 150 in six hours.

At the moment, Australian cricket is full of people walking round clutching their foreheads and complaining about "the culture" with all the comprehension of someone looking at a photocopier that has suddenly stopped working.

In actuality, the Australian cricket team has exactly the culture Cricket Australia deserves. How could the outcome have been otherwise?

Because CA is an organisation whose chief interest is management rather than cricket, it imagined that one report and a tweaking of the executive diagram would fix everything.

Read the Argus review again - I like to occasionally, just for laughs - and see if you can make out exactly how many of the deficiencies it identified have been remedied.

There have certainly been management changes. For the past 18 months, for instance, CA has had an "executive general manager, people and culture", one of whose roles is to "coach (the) National Men's team in Leadership and Team Values for high performance". Wonder how her last performance review went?

At least Arthur's successor Darren Lehmann is on a hiding to nothing. Forty-eight hours ago, nobody expected much from the Australian team in these Ashes Tests; now they will expect even less.

Lehmann can only benefit. He was a shrewd cricketer, is a more analytical coach than he appears, and has always been an infectious enthusiast.

Having started his working life on the assembly line at Holden in Elizabeth, South Australia, he draws on different influences than his young charges. This can only do the players good.

CA has also appointed a coach inclined to speak his mind - indeed, they actually reprimanded him for it last season. This can only do the administrators good.

In the short term, the individual most awkwardly placed is Michael Clarke, who stood shoulder to shoulder with his coach in India, but who has lain face-to-physio's table most of the time since, belatedly turning up after Warner's suspension to look suitably cross.

With whom has he sided in this "restructure"? How accountable is he for the dressing room's drift into anomie? He has at last relinquished the selection responsibilities he should never have had in the first place. But uneasy is the head that wears the crown ... not to mention the back supporting that head.

In the medium term, a figure whose future bears closer examination is Sutherland. Next month he will have been chief executive of CA for 12 years, and also turn 48, having come to authority as a young man.

Sutherland came out swinging, as it were, in the aftermath of Warner's late night brain fade. He spoke well, and feelingly, about the responsibilities shared by team and management to set and enforce standards of behaviour.

But when Shane Warne lost his temper pyrotechnically during the Big Bash League last summer, Sutherland declined to condemn him, and even praised Melbourne's biggest Star as "phenomenal" - of which there is no doubt, but there are times and places for such remarks.

Sutherland has also signed off on a memorandum of understanding and a television deal that for all the Argus review's talk of pay for "absolute performance" will make this particular generation of Australian cricketers far wealthier more or less irrespective of how well they do. One wonders how that will impact "the culture".

(Incidentally, how would you be feeling were you David Gyngell at Channel 9 at the moment? Like someone who perfectly picked the top of the market to buy?)

And once a buck starts rolling, who knows where it will stop?