Australia bundled out of T20 World Cup after England sneak past Sri Lanka to snatch semi-final spot

SA is going to be a challenge for sure.

He can show leadership by making those points internally within CA (which he may have). Not publicly. He holds a senior position within the organisation and he has a responsibility to act in accordance with CA's commercial approach. His position doesn't include setting policy and he should never have made a public comment. I didn't say winning in Pakistan comes easy, But the 3rd Test result doesn't mean they didn't make errors in the series which should have been avoided. One doesn't wash away the other. And next time, those errors may see a series loss against an opponent.

Boris Becker warned about this sort of saturation near 30 years ago. He was specifically referring to tennis but it fits.

They were poor in Pakistan. Second test would've been a victory had Cummins been more aggressive with his strategy and enforcing the follow on. Third test good performance and then they lost a test in Sri Lanka. Follow that up with a loss in the T20 World cup. If they lose the home series to SA (very possible) then McDonald and Cummins should be under a lot of pressure.

There are plenty of good coaches out there if we look beyond the usual stable that Australian coaches do look at. Someone like Ryan Campbell would be a good fit, considering the cricketing journey he has been on with Netherlands and before that Hong Kong, he would’ve coached a lot of T20 cricket and been involved in a lot of cutthroat tournaments that occur at associate level, in some ways you need to be a better coach at that level than you do for Australia where you are guaranteed entry into every tournament on reputation alone (another mistake). Australian cricket is one of the most insular organisations and will only pick from within their little club. McDonald being promoted was a lazy appointment, they didn’t go through a process they just promoted the assistant because he was a good bloke that wasnt anti-establishment.

That's 4 too many, the test side really should be kept completely seperate unless you have a generational player like Stokes for England. I like Green and he may well become that player, but even he should in my opinion be ensured to play test cricket as his first priority. There are enough great limited overs players going around Australia that we don't need to pick half our test XI.

Regardless of anything that happened, how good is Nissanka. When he first came on the scene, I thought that this is a kid going places. SRL legend in the making.

just proving betting is for idiots, i hope nobody took those deliberate unders.

yep winning in Pakistan comes easy, despite what Ringo says. as for the sponsorship stuff, this isn't just Cummins, it's not "personal". decarbonisation and walking away from its money is happening in many places. i see his behaviour as leadership. he didn't make the divides that the reaction shows. leadership just activates them

That's what's good about it. I don't want Australia to win more than half the cricket world cups and I don't want New Zealand to win more than half the rugby world cups. Sport is best when you don't know who's going to win

Yes they changed coaches but they also copped a backlash for the Captain's stance against Alinta. If you go politics you lose the support of half the country and they were almost certainly told that in various ways . Perhaps they felt the absense of total support .

Aussies were $4, India $4, England $5, NZ $9, Pakistan $9.

Hopefully Maxi can have some down time with probably just one Shield match to play, before the BBL starts.

Oh ok. Well Cummins was pretty foolish in dissing CA's major sponsor by refusing to endorse them - basically said they are bad news. Only did damage to Alinta's brand when their sponsorship arrangement with CA is all about building their brand. (there'd be more than a few businesses out of the public spotlight where that would get you terminated). He may have his personal beliefs (and really should back those up in his own personal life approach), but in any event, even if it was 15 minutes, it was impactful. And negatively so to Alinta. So it was poor judgement at best. Maybe a lack of corporate nous/experience. - Actually I thought they were under par in Pakistan. Some poor decision making re strategic approach IMO. SL - yeah, well, success in SL isn't too hard to come by atm. - Will check out Watto's read.

well if he doesn't get on the Ashes plane and into the white ball teams from here on I will be reactivating my honorary west Aussie citizenship and joining the reaction! Thermidor! Thermidor!

I agree with many of your points esp re team balance. Re the team statements I expect it's Finch being in the denial stage of grief. But also interesting to read Watto on how debilitating it can be for some to be told again and again they have to perform today or they are gone etc etc. So more vanilla public statements needs to be seen in that regard. It was the OP assumption that they didn't care and could consider a new career I was responding to. I read Maxwell to be saying - these things are a dime a dozen (they are); we do our best; even when we win we don't really get to reflect; when we lose we try to move on - because we will have to turn up next week somewhere else to go again, clear eyes full hearts mode. really... there's no off season. way too much meaningless cricket. Clearly Maxi with others suffers burnout and has had mental health issues. The intensity of the way he plays, the levels he is judged at - that's what I see here. Not a failure to care.

i presumed this was another dig at Cummins and his recent 15 mins of advocacy? as for the other, didn't seem to hold them back in Pakistan, Sri Lanka or, dare I say, Australia. b (also, some of the most successful of our teams have had very political, even divided dressing rooms. Watto's new book on dressing room dynamics looks interesting, notwithstanding a bit of coachy preachy stuff i.e. sign up to the Watto Plan if you want to be mindful and successful.)

Well they aren't anymore..

I'm sure South Africa are also about to get absolutely hammered for the loss to the Dutch. The English got hammered after losing to the Irish, so yep we certainly aren't alone. But those sides had more a one poor game moment, Australia have just been consistently very averge without ever quite hitting rock bottom, it's almost more frustrating as a fan as they were doing just enough to get away with it, it's why a big part of me is relieved we didn't get through, it doesn't reward mediocrity.

Now Mud, come on. The internal politics within the Australian camp was rife last summer.