The silver bullet

Early in the hours of 24 June 2013, James Hopes and his wife were woken up by the sound of his phone buzzing in their Brisbane bedroom. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the off-season, Hopes ignored it.

Then it buzzed again with a text message, and again with another call. Peering over to the bedside table, he saw the calls were coming from Darren Lehmann, his state coach, who was in England as an assistant for Australia A ahead of the Ashes tour. A little grumpily, Hopes called back and momentarily thought his coach had become the latest transgressor in the recent series of misbehaving Australian cricketers. 'I was half asleep, and I could have sworn he said, "I've been sent home." I asked him, "What have you done?"'

Seconds later, Hopes became the first person in Australia to hear that Lehmann was to replace Mickey Arthur. Lehmann was advising Hopes as captain of Queensland, but also as the friend who had previously raised the possibility. During the summer, Hopes had run the question of the Australian coaching job past Lehmann and received a dismissive response. Now the plot twist arrived. 'He said, "I want to tell you first because we've talked and I said I wouldn't do it. But I'm going to be announced as Australia coach tomorrow, and I just walked out of lunch now with it." We spoke again next morning to make sure I hadn't dreamed it.'

The unexpected phone call illustrated the suddenness of the decision and the unprecedented nature of its timing. Plenty of influential figures in Australian cricket had begun to wonder about the direction of the team under the leadership of Mickey Arthur, Pat Howard and Michael Clarke during the previous summer. Those figures had been doubly concerned when in India they had responded to poor results and slackening attitudes by summarily suspending four players in order to set an example for the rest. But no-one expected James Sutherland to act as brutally and decisively as this two weeks out from an Ashes series.

Grumbles predated India. Shane Warne's was the first voice to cry out, from the Big Bash League in January, that the Australian team was not functioning as it could be. Angered by the composition of the Test side that had played South Africa in Perth the previous year, and particularly by the absence of Peter Siddle, Warne penned a series of articles for his website. He advocated the removal of Arthur, Howard and John Inverarity, among others, and nominated New Zealand's former captain Stephen Fleming as coach, with Darren Lehmann next in line as assistant. Publicly, Sutherland defended Arthur and Howard, but he also met with Warne in February, spending near enough to two hours hearing the views of his former Victoria teammate.

'I let James know what I thought,' Warne says. 'I think they had a bit of a plan in mind too and were keeping a close eye on things. I wasn't happy with the situation the team was in. I don't think the players had confidence with all the chopping and changing that was going on - there was no confidence in anything. And you could see from the way the team was playing at that time, they were playing like they were all playing for their spots. A few people in the background at CA who were close to the team said, "Mate, have your say."'

Sutherland did not rush to judgement, not least because he had appointed Arthur and Howard, and both were under contract until 2015. But the Mohali suspensions and the manner of their handling left him wondering about the team and called to mind many of the issues raised by Warne earlier in the year. When Howard informed him of the suspension decision Arthur, Clarke and Gavin Dovey had made, Sutherland questioned the verdict and the process by which it had been reached. Howard went to India and in Delhi conveyed to Arthur that a big call had been made and that its rightness needed to be demonstrated pretty smartly. In other words, 'This had better work.' Following the conclusion of the tour, Sutherland met Arthur and Dovey in Melbourne, telling them a repeat would not be tolerated.

Players prepared for England with regular trips to the Centre of Excellence, in Brisbane, where a significant event was the reinstitution of a team fines committee, a long-time source of jokes and team drinking money that had disappeared from the Australian team in recent years. It was to be run by Wade and Phillip Hughes, and it eventually had ruinous consequences for Arthur.

At a sunny Edgbaston, Australia resumed cricket contact with England in their first match of the Champions Trophy, in June. Like the 2005 T20 meeting at the Rose Bowl, in Hampshire, this contest could be viewed not only as an end in itself, but also as the first skirmish in a long war that spanned ten Test matches across two hemispheres: this Ashes series, during the English summer, was to be followed up by another just six months later, in Australia. Some members of the Australian hierarchy reckoned that under Andy Flower, most of this England team's great achievements might now be behind them. Inverarity told an Australian Cricket Society lunch at the MCG, 'England in 2013 won't be as good as England were in 2011 - I think they've peaked.'

Yet what unfolded in Birmingham suggested that Australia would struggle to get close. Their warm-up fixtures had gone in the wrong direction, with a comfortable win over the West Indies followed by a hiding at the hands of India. Now, lacking Clarke due to back trouble that confined him to London for treatment, they put together a timid performance. Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson posed little threat with the new ball, as England strolled to 269. On a fine afternoon this should have been attainable, but the innings was strangled by the accuracy of the English bowlers and a curious lack of impetus at the top of the Australian order - none of David Warner, Shane Watson or Phillip Hughes was able to strike at better than 60.

Players and staff from both England and Australia were invited to a function organised for CA and ICC personnel that night. England's players had reason to celebrate, Australia's rather less so. Nonetheless, after a few drinks at their hotel, six members of the Champions Trophy squad ventured out: Warner, Hughes, Matthew Wade, Clint McKay, Mitchell Marsh and Glenn Maxwell. Of this group, Warner was the most senior player, the only solid member of both Test and ODI teams. Their destination was the Walkabout, a cheesy Australian-themed chain pub that Warner had already visited that week. It proved a suitably sordid venue for what followed.

After a few drinks, and a few contained conversations, English and Australian players mixed. Whether on or off the field, Warner had always been capable of picking a fight, and at about 2.30 a.m. he took offence at England player Joe Root's use of a party wig as a fake beard. He spoke to Root, may have received a verbal rejoinder, then took a swing at the other man's momentarily bearded chin. The blow was glancing, and the players quickly made up. It was witnessed by numerous players and staff from Australia and England, but none reported it immediately to management. Warner sent apologetic messages to Root the following day and thought the matter closed.

For nearly two days it remained a secret shared, and even joked about by Australia's players and by staff members who had been present, yet unknown to Arthur and Dovey. Most agreed that after the misadventures of India, this was an episode best kept quiet rather than played out in public view. But as the team trained in Birmingham on the Monday, ahead of their next match, events took a turn.

Wade had been eager in handing out fines and now called up Watson for wearing a batting vest in the nets rather than the full training shirt. No longer holding any official leadership role, Watson had grown increasingly irritated at the way the likes of Wade and Warner were dictating events, and spent his time with older players such as Johnson. In the words of one player in the squad, 'You either went out for dinner with one group of people or the other group. It didn't bother me which group I went out with, but I knew it wasn't going to be all together; it had to be one or the other.' In this environment, and after his suspension in India, Wade's nitpicking set Watson off. He refused to pay up. Feisty at the best of times, Wade called Clarke in London to complain that Watson would not take heed of the fines committee. Both complained about Watson to Arthur.

Arthur called Watson into his hotel room for a meeting that evening. He told Watson that fines committees worked only if all members of the squad agreed to participate, and that he hoped Watson as a senior player would set a better example for others through his attitude, adherence to rules . . . and wearing the correct attire. Indignant at being called in for the meeting, and annoyed at Arthur's words, Watson responded by saying he had bigger issues to worry about, though not elaborating on what they were.

Once the meeting ended, Arthur asked Dovey what Watson had been referring to. As manager, Dovey had been entrusted with the task of looking after the team's values, a task customarily shared by senior players. In this moment, it became clear that among those stated values, honesty needed some work: he had no idea what Watson had meant. A few conversations later, Dovey relayed the events of the Walkabout to Arthur.

In responding to this news, Arthur was torn between two factors. Having stressed India as a line in the sand, that the players must uphold standards and that all had to move on from Mohali in a new spirit of accountability, Arthur needed to take strong action. There was also the fact that Warner had been fined $5750 in May for abusing the senior cricket journalists Malcolm Conn and Robert Craddock on Twitter. But Arthur had over the preceding eighteen months taken Warner under his wing, rightly believing the combustible but talented opener was critical to the team's success. Eventually, Arthur chose to place Warner on 'amber', a team warning meaning that another transgression would result in punishment.

Both the acting captain, George Bailey, and selector on duty, John Inverarity, agreed with this decision, as neither wanted to lose Warner from the team for the next match, which was against New Zealand. Confronted by Arthur and Dovey, Warner admitted to the punch and spoke contritely. The amber status filtered through to Jolimont and all but sealed Arthur's fate.

Sutherland acted swiftly in response to what he saw as a soft response to Warner's transgression. A phone hook-up with England was organised for Wednesday at 7 a.m. Birmingham time, during which Sutherland and Dean Kino took the matter out of Arthur's and Dovey's hands, stating that Warner was unavailable for that day's match and that he had to submit to a code-of-conduct hearing. Bailey found out Warner would not be available when over breakfast he was asked, 'So what are you going to do with the batting order without Davey?' In the circumstances, Australia played well against New Zealand, only to have any chance of a result cruelled by rain.

The County Court judge Gordon Lewis, who had already ruled against Warner on the Twitter issue, levied a fine of $11,500 and suspended him from all cricket until the first Ashes Test, on 10 July. Lewis' judgement effectively banned Warner from the first two matches of the series due to a lack of cricket. The following day, Sutherland called a press conference in Brisbane, where he tore into Warner and the rest of the team. 'David Warner has done a despicable thing but I also hold the team to account,' he said. 'There were other people there with him. Those that were there need to take responsibility for that, but so does the team and the management group as a whole as well. There is not a lot of good that happens at two-thirty in the morning in a pub or a nightclub.'

No-one thought to ask Sutherland his thoughts about Arthur, which was probably just as well. Sutherland, his chairman, Wally Edwards, and Pat Howard had much to ponder. All were due to fly to the United Kingdom the following week. Before departure, Edwards and Sutherland met with Paul Marsh and Greg Dyer, chief executive and president, respectively, of the Australian Cricketers' Association, to hear their assessment of what was happening. Marsh was also bound for England, and once there he met members of the team, who were by that point in London for their match against Sri Lanka. Needing an unlikely 254 from 29.1 overs to reach the semifinal, they slid predictably to elimination. Marsh spoke with Sutherland again in London, relaying a frank picture of the team's anxieties and divisions.

By Saturday 22 June, Sutherland and Howard had completed their investigations and came to their conclusion: Arthur was to be removed and the job offered to Lehmann. In this dual action, they felt the team's results could be improved, while off-field ructions would be salved by Lehmann's universally strong respect and rapport among the players. That evening, at the Royal Garden Hotel in London, Sutherland told Dovey, then Clarke, who was utterly shocked. 'My head went so light I thought I was going to fall off my stool,' he wrote in his diary of the tour. 'It was the last thing - the absolute last thing - I thought the meeting was going to be about.' Following his resignation as a selector, Clarke's lack of say in the coaching choice demonstrated a significant reduction in his power. 'Michael wasn't consulted,' Howard later said, 'but he was told.'

At six o'clock the next morning, Sutherland and Howard informed the CA board via teleconference of their recommendation, which was approved with minimal dissent. Howard then set off for Bristol.

Not knowing matters were now out of his hands, Arthur remained upbeat, even defiant, in his pronouncements about the strength of the team. Warner's suspension created a gap at the top of the batting order, and Arthur and Clarke had decided to send Watson back to his preferred opener's berth, with Ed Cowan to bat at number three. After the premature end to the Champions Trophy campaign, Arthur ventured to Bristol, where Australia A were playing Gloucestershire.

This parallel tour had been running as well as the ODI campaign had gone badly. Helped by the joviality of captain Brad Haddin and batting assistant Darren Lehmann, players were enjoying themselves and performing, while the selector and tour manager, Rod Marsh, was struck by Lehmann's thoroughness. Years before, they had fallen out badly in South Australia when, as the grumpy old pro, Lehmann had objected to Marsh looking for new leaders in the Redbacks squad. On the day of his retirement in November 2007, Lehmann said, 'I think Rod as a player is one of the guys who I loved and idolised; his views and mine differ on the way to manage cricket teams. That's probably all I'd like to say on that one.'

Tim Nielsen had remained close to Lehmann, suggesting him for assistant coaching roles more than once. But there was suspicion about Lehmann at board level, given a disciplinary record less than spotless, a tendency to speak his mind and his long-time role as the president of the players' union. He had even been put up as a candidate to coach Australia's Under-19s team at the 2010 World Cup in New Zealand and rebuffed by the board as 'not the sort of man we want to teach young Australian cricketers'.

Nevertheless, Marsh had patched up their relationship in the years between and now saw how Lehmann's larrikin persona hid the habits of an exceptionally motivated, organised and ambitious coach - the embodiment of the player-driven coaching scheme he had advocated for more than a decade. Haddin was also swayed by his first experience of Lehmann the coach, much as the players from Hyderabad's Deccan Chargers and then Queensland had been. He had vivid memories of Lehmann's ways as captain of South Australia. 'As a captain - and South Australia weren't very good; let's be honest - Darren was all about winning cricket games,' Haddin said early in the Ashes tour. 'He thought the best way for young cricketers to get better was to put them under pressure and play on the last day for a result.'

On the final day of Australia A's match in Bristol, Lehmann helped the batsmen in warm-ups as usual and assisted the tour's head coach, Troy Cooley, until around midday, when Howard arrived and asked him out to lunch. Lehmann was a little surprised at the invitation, and with some reason. For a long time he had been among Howard's most vocal critics. His dislike for some of the more scientific extremes of player management and wellness reports was well known to Queensland's players. Due partly to their close proximity to CA's high-performance arm at the Allan Border Field, the Bulls took pride in doing things their own way, often ducking CA's recommendations.

Few Queensland players were chosen for Australia, yet over the preceding two seasons Lehmann had guided them to trophies in all three formats. After the national team's disastrous results in India, and little better in the Champions Trophy, Howard's approach to Lehmann was an admission that this anti-establishment maverick and others like him might actually know better.

After talking through a handful of topics over lunch, Howard cut to the nub of things. 'How would you like to be Australian coach?'

Misreading it as a blue-sky conversation starter, Lehmann responded, 'Oh, I dunno, maybe in a few years, that might be nice.'

'No, I mean now.'

Lehmann's wife, Andrea, and their children were in Bristol, as the family had planned a holiday in Scotland following the Australia A tour. He hurriedly conferred with them, before accepting Howard's offer. The Lehmann family's 2013 northern summer trip would go on without Dad.

Mickey Arthur, John Inverarity and Rod Marsh were wondering where Lehmann and Howard had disappeared. Australia A were on the way to a narrow victory, characterised by aggressive batting, swing bowling and some doughty spin into a strong breeze by the leg spinner Fawad Ahmed. A few pre-Ashes meetings had taken place that day, including one at which Arthur had informed Cowan he would be moved down the order. Unable to get a taxi in the crisp early evening, Marsh called his wife for a lift back to the hotel. Once there, the trio were to have a selection meeting in the hotel bar, but they waited for Howard.

When he arrived, Howard seemed agitated and distracted. He had no interest in the selection discussion, which revolved around the addition of Steve Smith and Ashton Agar to the squad. After a few minutes, Howard said simply, 'Mickey, I need to see you.' In that one moment, as Marsh and Inverarity took their leave, all the day's events and mysterious absences made horrible sense to Arthur. 'Pat said, "Mate, we're moving you on. The board said the David Warner incident was the final straw, and we're giving you three months' salary," and that was it,' Arthur says. 'Lasted thirty seconds.'

Arthur walked to his room in a daze but then went back down to see Howard and Sutherland, who had arrived from London and checked in to a hotel that was a short walk away from Arthur's. Sutherland told Arthur that if things were misconstrued in the press he wanted to be clear that he, Sutherland, had the utmost respect for Arthur and simply felt that it was the best decision for Australian cricket at that moment. The trio shared a drink while chatting, and when Howard indicated he was hungry, the dead man walking and his two executioners ate steaks together.

Next morning, the players went to Arthur's room for what was in several cases a tearful farewell. Though Clarke spoke warmly, two absentees said much for the problems CA hoped to cauterise: Watson and Haddin. Soon after, Arthur gave a press conference in which he fired no bullets at CA before taking the journey to Perth via Heathrow. Arthur's mother died in Cape Town while he was in transit, and within a few hours of returning to Australia his whole family flew to South Africa.

In Arthur's few hours in Perth, one of his friends arrived to offer commiserations and condolences but also to run a critical eye over his contract. Noting the meagre three months' severance pay for a deal originally meant to last until 2015, he reckoned the payout had to be contested. Having almost taken CA to court over Simon Katich's dismissal in 2011, Harmers Workplace Lawyers finally had a chance to rattle cricket's cage.

Details of Arthur's legal case were leaked to the press in the days before the second Ashes Test, at Lord's. The leak served an unfortunate but necessary function. At Trent Bridge, Clarke and Arthur spoke every day over the phone. But after some of Arthur's more colourful legal claims, which included an allegation that Clarke had described Watson as a 'cancer' in the team, were spilled in a Channel Seven news report, the relationship fractured. Neither Arthur nor CA was responsible for the leak, but the fallout meant Lehmann's union with Clarke had room to grow.

Arthur's dismissal and Lehmann's appointment had happened so quickly that the Queensland chairman, Jim Holding, had to wait ten hours after James Hopes' unofficial call, on the morning after his overnight conversation with Lehmann, to receive an official communiqué from Sutherland. The story broke in Australia about 10.30 a.m., via near-simultaneous reports by Jesse Hogan in The Age and Malcolm Conn in the Daily Telegraph.

In Bristol, a trio of press conferences took place, by Sutherland and Howard, Arthur, and then Clarke and Lehmann. Facing questions about the embarrassment of the moment, the rotting of Australian cricket and whether he had considered his own position, Sutherland made a statement uncharacteristic in its boldness. 'We're grasping the nettle and making a decision to make change,' he said. 'Perhaps ahead of where public expectation might be, because we're not going to let things remain the same - the status quo's not good enough and we need improved performance, improved accountability and we expect to see that over the coming months.'

Sutherland denied that Lehmann was the silver bullet, but in that moment he sure looked like one. Next to a somewhat shaky Clarke, Lehmann radiated confidence from the moment the cameras began to roll. The first question put to him as Australian coach was simple. Can Australia still win the Ashes? Lehmann flashed a smile. 'Yes. Definitely.'