James Sutherland should resign. The sacking of Mickey Arthur should be, to paraphrase Michael Clarke, the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I’m not saying that Arthur should still be coach. He shouldn’t be. But you have to ask why this has happened. Who is responsible for another debacle? Sutherland has to be held accountable for the mess now.
He has had 10 years in the job and – the recent TV deal aside – has presided over one of the most alarming slides in Australia’s form, discipline, image and prestige.
During his tenure we have seen terrible strategic decisions which have irreversibly changed the landscape of Australian cricket.
Some of the current failings of the current Australian cricket team can be drawn back to shockingly poor decisions made back in 2003/04/05.
Back then, England had invented the T20 game. It was a raging success in its first year, as most things are.
It crucially remained highly successful in its second year, thereby demonstrating it was a successful product with a long term future in the domestic scene, the ability to bring people back to domestic cricket in droves and, more importantly, a vital source of revenue to build the game and ensure financial support for Test cricket.
Under James Sutherland, Cricket Australia decided to ignore the effect T20 had in English cricket. South Africa did not. Nor did the desperately short of income and of good goverance West Indies Cricket Board. They immediately introduced the game into their respective domestic circuits.
Very soon after that, T20 became an international game. Baffingly, the maiden international was played between Australia and NZ.
Australia had always treated the game as a gimmick, a short term fad, and yet they were given the first game. They turned up in retro clothing for God’s sake, truly reflecting just how badly CA misread T20 cricket.
Come 2007, the first world championship was held. Australia’s shocking performance in it was completely expected considering its disdainful approach to T20.
T20 is permanent. Australia missed the bandwagon and have been trying to catch up ever since. A hastily arranged T20 league (still disrespectfully known as the Big Bash League) was established and millions thrown at it, instead of at Test cricket.
CA’s complete and late focus on T20, led by James Sutherland, has come at extraordinary costs to Australian Test and one day cricket.
There is a meagre first class season, where the performances of players are secondary to those who perform well in T20. There is a largely non-existent Ryobi cup, which appears to be exile for those who can’t step up to T20 cricket.
Another huge failing of Sutherland was his inability to appropriately manage the performance of the selection panels and address the slide in Australia’s overall performance on-field – largely due to baffling selections.
Isn’t it outrageous that people can debate who was a more inept selector: Andrew Hilditch or John Inverarity? For me, Hilditch, but only just. Poor team after poor team was/is getting picked because Sutherland allows it to be so.
Sutherland has not appropriately addressed the Argus review, which day by day looks like a bigger waste of money. Everybody knows it, every major cricket journalist continually asks why the recommendations of the Argus review haven’t been adopted?
Why Mr Sutherland? Stand up and answer these questions, or be accountable like everyone else.
Sutherland was right to sack Arthur, and he is right to be fuming at David Warner. But Sutherland should resign. Today.
Far far too many problems have occurred on his watch. It’s doubtful you would find anyone who would say Australian cricket is in a better place than what it was five years ago, or 10 years ago.
Australian cricket is reaping what it sowed. It is the farmer who should be held most accountable for continual mismanagement, not his farmhands.
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