So who stays and who goes after the Ashes 2010/11 debacle do you think?

Administration
The decisions to insist on players participating in T20 tournaments rather than preparing properly for Test Series were appalling. It may have ended up costing Doug Bollinger his Test career. Not organising a proper series of warm-up games in the lead up to the Ashes starting - unforgiveable. Not sure whether this is James Sutherland's responsibility, but surely somebody has to pay the price for these decisions?

Selectors, coaching and support staff
Tim Neilson has presided over the worst and quickest decline in Australian Test team standard in history (not counting the World Series schism in the 80s). While a decline was inevitable with the departure of players such as Haydn, Waugh, Gilchrist, McGrath and Warne, the magnitude of the fall has been astonishing. More worrying is the seeming lack of any strategic approach to rebuilding going on. Phil Hughes has a couple of low scores in England and gets dropped. And then gets replaced by someone who is not a career opener! Hughes then gets brought back at a crucial moment in the next Ashes series and is then pilloried for not being an instant success. Yet other players seem to be allowed to persist despite ongoing lack of form - Hilfenhaus and Johnson being the glaring examples in the bowling department and Clarke and Ponting (and Hussey apart from a couple of good innings at the start of the Ashes) in the batting lineup. Consistency? Logic?
This team has more support staff than at any other time in Australian cricketing history. Where is the evidence than the specialist batting and bowling coaches are having the slightest positive effect? Rather than going and figuring out things for themselves, today's players seem to be expecing to have all their problems solved for them by the coaching staff. And while waiting for play to start at the SCG on Monday, a short video interview was shown on the scoreboard with a woman who's sole job in the support staff seems to be pouring Gatorade from a dispenser into individuals' water-bottles. Apparently it is VERY important that players get the right colour Gatorade. I am not making this up.
I would say, have one coach, one fitness instructor and one team manager. Get rid of everyone else.

Players
As players will hardly ever leave of their own accord (why would they? they get paid enourmous sums of money), selectors need to be much more brutal when it comes to getting rid of players once they start the inevitable decline. Ponting and Hussey should have been shown the door after the last Ashes series. Johnson and Hilfenhaus have been persisted with for far too long. Watson has been continued with as an opener despite him continuing to demostrate he does not have the required mindset of an opener. So, my suggestions would be:

Give Hughes an extended run as opener. Assure him that if he gets a couple of low scores in a row that is not going to put his place in jeopardy. Put someone like Shaun Marsh with him. Khawaja has shown enough that he should be put in at 3. I would give Clarke a run at 4, but needs to start performing quickly (maybe White or David Hussey are options here, but I'm not convinced about either of them at Test level). Then bring in Cosgrove at 5. Watson is dropped down to the spot where he should be batting at, No. 6 and follow him with Haddin. Not sure what to do about the bowlers - I'd be bring back Hauritz with an eye to replacing him with O'Keefe in the next year or two. Bollinger needs to come back into the team, but then who else? Harris is too injury prone and I'm not sure the next generation are ready yet - Starc, Copeland, etc.

Thoughts?

1. Katich
2. Watson
3. Khawaja
4. ????
5. Hussey
6. Ponting
7. Haddin
8. Johson
9. Siddle
10. Harris
11. ????

Ponting is still a class batsman (in my opinion our best) and there should definitely be a spot for him in Sri Lanka and why not no.3? Thats where he bats his best. Its hard to pick a team for games so many months away, but I would pick something like this for the Sri Lanka tests.

Watson
Katich
Ponting
Khawaja
Clarke
Hussey
Haddin
Hauritz
Bollinger
Siddle
Hilfenhaus

I don't think Beer was that bad in Sydney, but as far as I'm concerned, Hauritz is still the best spinner in Australia and by no means is he old enough to choose someone based on age. Clarke will come good, it was only a year ago when he was our best batsman. He had a poor 2010 as most Aussie cricketers did.

I realise we can't put everything down to a 'bad run of form' but I don't see how playing a bunch of 22 year olds is going to benefit Australian cricket.

We need to understand that we're not the world beaters we once were, but that doesn't call for rash actions on selections. 'Hauritzgate' has shown everything that is wrong with our selections at the moment, too short sighted and picking younger players when they aren't as good as the player they are replacing.

Interesting result in the T20 international last night. Apart from Watsn's batting, nobody really impressed, and White and Hussey's efforts were not up to scratch. Not sure why Paine was so far down the batting order either? In the bowling, Watson was astonishigly good, while nobody else was great. Tait was very unlucky - two dropped catches probably turned the match for England, particularly O'Keefe's howler on the very first ball of the match. Lee was frustrating - he'd bowl a mostly good over and then spoil it with a couple of shockers every time.

I'm surprised England didn't win much more easily actually. I thought they bowled in a very disciplined manner most of the time and the field placings were excellent. Really showed Australia up in this regard. Poor coaching/preparation in the Australian camp? The English batting was also a class above Australia, until they almost all got themselves out.

Bollinger out.
Hussey in, then dropped
Beer out....

oh sorry that was Warnies weekend.

No, Warnie's weekend would definitely have involved Bollinger and Beer and multiple Husseys. But he would have opened with Punter...

Gosh Shane Watson is in hot form at the moment. He almost got Australia home in the first T20 last week and he definitely won the game for Australia last night. In a way the win may hide some other worrying sigs for Australia - the standard of bowling is incredibly poor at the moment. Why the selectors persist with Mitchell Johnson at the moment is beyond me. He's offered up some of the most woeful bowling I've ever seen at international level this summer. I presume the selectors are simply hoping he'll come good. Bollinger keeps getting dicked around by the selectors and it's showing in his current form. He seems like he needs some very overt support from selectors and team leaders to do well, but he doesn't seem to be getting the love at the moment. Brett Lee seems to be the one ray of hope at the moment - let's hope he can stay injury free for the next few months at least. I think the David Hussey experiment can be ditched - he seems to be one of these players who shines at domestic level, but can't quite make the jump up to international level. And Clarke's game hasn't evolved with the game - it's a power game now and he doesn't have any. Couldn't believe he called for the batting powerplay when he did. Watson was knackered and Clarke can't produce big shots. His dismissal proved that. I'd ditch him and replace him with Tim Paine, purely as a batsman. Get Cameron White to captain the team. He'll have the guidance of Haddin, Lee and Hussey around him and it allows Paine to watch and learn in preparation for his long-term leadership asperations.

World Cup squad just announced:
SQUAD: Ricky Ponting (c), Michael Clarke (vc), Doug Bollinger, Brad Haddin, John Hastings, Nathan Hauritz, David Hussey, Mike Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine, Steve Smith, Shaun Tait, Shane Watson, Cameron White

Fairly predictable apart from the inclusion of alrounder Hastings.

Obvious problems though - Ponting and Mike Hussey will be returning from injury. Ponting is also horribly out of form. Clarke is out of form and doesn't really have the batting style that the modern limited over game demands. Johnson has been out of form for a year now - why selectors continue to select him is a mystery to me. And Doug Bollinger needs to pick his form up pretty significantly too. Shaun Tait worries me - I'm not convinced he's got the stamina to last a World Cup campaign. He'd be my first bowler picked for T20 games, but the ODI format might be a challenge for him. Good to see Brett Lee and Nathan Hauritz back though.

I think its a fairly good squad. My 1st XI would be

Watson
Clarke
Ponting
M.Hussey
White
Haddin
Smith
Lee
Johnson
Hauritz
Bollinger

Another win but Australia have paid a pretty heavy price...

Perhaps sanity will prevail and the selectors will realize the folly of choosing Shaun Tait to play in the World Cup. His body is just not up to playing sustained cricket in any form other than T20.

And just like the last game, has one fantastic innings (this time by Marsh) covered up the serious lack of batting form in this team? Good to see Bollinger back in bowling form though.

You only really need one good innings in an ODI, which with the current form of our top 4/5 players is actually okay, except of course for the useless captain; Clarke. I would say send him back to NSW to get some form, but that is probably a bit unfair on them, so lets do that.

Not sure who I'd drop from NSW to make way for Clarke. All those young kids are in much better form!

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/hussey-hauritz-out-of-world-cup-squad-20110208-1al6k.html

Astonishing. In almost the same breath, Andrew Hilditch firstly says the best way to be successful is to go into the tournament with 15 fully fit players, and then follows it up by admitting that Ponting, Haddin and Smith are all injured!

Words fail me...

How can the Autralian players go back and play for their states when CA in thier wisdom changed the format to the domestic one day series with the split innings. Lately, everything CA management seem to touch turns to crap

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/ponting-happy-to-take-punt-as-finger-trouble-continues-20110209-1an7p.html
So Ponting can't even practice in the nets without aggravating the finger injury. Can't be in his usual fielding position. And has to wear a guard on the finger.

This is insanity.