It's surprising Hilditch lasted this long

The Argus report into Australia's performance has been presented and already there have been casualties. The most obvious was Andrew Hilditch, who is no longer chairman of selectors. Chloe Saltau in the Age writes that it's surprising Hilditch lasted so long, given some of the glaring mistakes he and his panel have made - as recently as this month.

So the story goes, Hilditch recently phoned a member of team management in Sri Lanka to inform him Aaron Finch would be left out of the Twenty20 team. When Hilditch was asked why, he said the selectors felt Shaun Marsh was a better proposition against destructive fast bowler Lasith Malinga. Malinga, though, was injured, and had been publicly ruled out of the series. The exchange suggests a scarcely believable lack of awareness, and while cricket insiders laugh in telling the story, its theme is a common one when the topic of selection is raised.

Also in the Age, Greg Baum notes that now the off-field heads have rolled, the players must justify their own positions.

Whatever your standpoint on the remedial measures - to make coach and captain selectors, for instance - it is clear that Australian cricket will be run differently henceforth. As when a football club sacks its coach, everyone with his head above the parapets is nervous. But it does not finish there. Unlike at a football club, the Argus report puts the players squarely in the gun.

Peter Lalor, in the Australian, compares the Australian side in Sri Lanka to the Soviet cosmonauts who called home from space one day to be told their country no longer existed.

For a start, on-tour selector Greg Chappell has just been informed he is no longer a selector. Although he will remain in that job until somebody is found to replace him ... Coach Tim Nielsen finds himself in real Twilight Zone territory. His biggest concern is that the job as he knows it has been scrapped and he will have to apply if he wants to take on the new enhanced coach's role.

In the Herald Sun, Ron Reed notes that reading the Argus report, "one is reminded of the English cricket writer who lambasted the Poms during a tour of Australia a few years ago with the acidic observation that there were only three things they could not do - bat, bowl and field."

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck notes that much work remains to get Australian cricket back on track.

The next step is to call to account those responsible for the debacle. Abysmal decisions have been taken in recent times, the three-year contact given to Nielsen, the faith shown in Chappell, the foolish season launch, the doomed nomination of John Howard, the appointment of Craig McDermott as bowling coach, the undermining of the state 2nd XI competition, the contacts given to T20 bubblers and denied to accomplished cricketers, the grovelling before Indian power (not least in forcing players to play T20 a few days before a Test series was to begin), the toleration of conflicts of interest. It tells of incompetence in high places.