What happened to Australian Cricket System?

For past decade, there have been lot of comments about how good Aus cricket system is, that they have professional cricket system with strong academies for learning, competitive domestic cricket and administrators who were way ahead of others in terms of cricket management and coming up with innovative ways to stay ahead of others and making sure Aus is #1 cricket team in the world. It was supposedly this system which kept Aus ahead of others in field.

Looking at current results, it seems there were two reasons for Aus' success - Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. All Aus captains of recent time had the luxury of calling upon services of these great bowlers whenever in trouble and these two delivered almost every time. They also created enough opportunities for batsmen to play without pressure and freely and there is palpable difference in batting records of same personnel after these two left.

After these two have left, the system, administrators, captains and other players are looking human and Aus will struggle to be among the top 3 cricket nations. One could understand the impact that absence of such players can cause to any team but the way rest of the people have behaved clearly shows Aus System is just like any other cricket system like we see in other countries.

Aus selectors first make Ponting rest for some ODIs and when the team loses the next ODI, they immediately ask him to get back. In the past we did not use to hear people raising concerns on teams being selected, now this is commonplace. In fact, the noise looks like pretty similar to what we used to see after India used to have an overseas series (Losing usually) and then teams being selected to for next series.

Though Ponting is among the best captains statistically but the decisions that he made during India and SA series shows him in very poor light. In the earlier days, all he used to do was throw ball to McGrath and Warne and they would make people call it a masterstroke but now decisions are far more complex. There are too many disciplinary discussions happening, Symonds, Katich-Clarke arguments showing team is not happy and there is no unity among the team. Players are looking mediocre and this is reflecting in on-field results also.

Though some people feel that Aus will emerge again as a strong power in cricket or they still are. The only reason that they will stay at top is that the standard of cricket is falling in most countries and there are not enough teams to challenge them. Only SA and India look to be places where cricket is thriving and Aus will be next to them.