James Sutherland questions CA high performance arm

James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, has narrowed his focus on high performance failings as a reason for the national team's dire recent displays in Asian Test matches, adding scrutiny to the roles of the team performance manager Pat Howard and the selection panel.

In response to repeated questioning about Australia's three-nil hiding at the hands of an unfancied Sri Lanka in their recent Test series - a result that cost Steven Smith's side their No. 1 ranking in the longest format - Sutherland's rhetoric has shifted from patience to a more urgent tone.

His latest words, on the day CA announced an additional $500,000 in funding for the Growing Cricket for Girls fund, followed a raft of criticism from former players, including the ex-CA Board director Mathew Hayden and the recently retired captain Michael Clarke, about the decision to rest Smith from the latter limited overs portion of the Sri Lanka tour. While Sutherland defended that decision as a matter of necessity, he was more questioning of how Australia's players did not appear to be adding the requisite adaptability to their games.

"Are some of the fundamental things that we are doing to prepare our players to perform well and be highy competitive in subcontinental conditions passing the test?" Sutherland told The Sydney Morning Herald. "I think that's where the review gets a little bit more meaty and challenging and more fundamental, going right down into questioning our high-performance systems as well.

"To be a bonafide international cricketer in this day and age, you need to be able to adapt to conditions in Australia, conditions in England, conditions in the subcontinent ... wherever you play," he said. "And that adaptability is something that needs to be reviewed because some are adapting and some aren't."

Speaking about the longer term, Sutherland stated that Australian cricket had to reach a point where "in 10 years' time when we tour India there is a pool of hundreds of players that could be on that tour". These words will not be lost on Howard, out of contract next year, or the selection chairman Rod Marsh, also with a deal due to expire in 2017. CA recently hired Graham Manou to manage the junior talent pathway.

On the subject of Smith, Sutherland described the captain's imposed rest as a product of the game's increasingly cluttered schedule. "It's obviously far more preferable for him to stay and see that through," he said, "but the nature of international cricket today and the calendar is that at times we need to make decisions that are in the best interests of the individual and the team."

In coming weeks at the next round of ICC meetings, Sutherland will re-embark on a task he has championed for some time - that of changing cricket's global structures to allow more room between matches, and greater context so each contest has an easily understandable reason for existing, and by extension greater value for fans and broadcasters.