Australia reaping what they had sown

Dirk Nannes, in All Out Cricket, believes that Australia's current state of affairs in this Ashes can be attributed to a decision handed down by the top of Cricket Australia, which involved a dramatic restructuring of their youth system, and the criteria for selection into the team. Previously, where a 30-year-old Michael Hussey might have made a Test debut, the system now encourages a younger player, who only has a few matches under his belt, to be blooded straight away. Nannes concludes this is evident in the inconsistent performances seen this series.

With the change in focus towards youth, many domestic first-class boards changed their core organisational goals from 'creating a strong first-class team', to 'creating Australian players'. As a result of the shift in focus and changes to the rules, older players on the fringe of first-class teams were finding themselves squeezed off the contract list, or that their yearly retainer was falling to a level that made a comfortable family life unattainable. They no longer had a cricketing forum to prove that they were better than the up-and-coming youth, and hence were shuffled on before their time.