Short Pitch: Squeezing responsibility from stones

Brad Haddin's second wind seems less gusty than his first.  During his near-game winning innings on Saturday and Sunday, the Australian vice captain batted with a responsibility often lacking during his first tenure in the Australian side and during his initial stint as the national team's vice-captain.

That was by some distance the best innings I've seen from Brad Haddin. He will be upset, but that was legendary, even in failure.
— Jarrod Kimber (@ajarrodkimber) July 14, 2013

The tweet above is absolutely correct: Haddin batted with a responsibility and dedication notably lacking in antipodean cricket over the past two years.

It was a product of a man of pride, vintage and one who aspires to cricket like Ashes series above all else.  It was also the result of responsibility earned and logically bestowed, rather than endowed with hope.  Placing his faith in the wrong people led to Mickey Arthur's downfall, not vague implications of racial discrimination (though in all honesty his nationality probably didn't help).

As Australian cricket attempts to wander from the wilderness, hope - and therefore responsbility - has been placed in promise rather than runs or personality.  Arthur installed the likes of David Warner as cornerstones for the future and was repaid with bar fights and homework-gates, the symptoms of players who have taken opportunity for granted.

After being (deservedly) dropped, be assured that Haddin - who should (deservedly) suspect that Matthew Wade is now Australia's superior batting 'keeper - now takes nothing for granted.  Similarly, post-censure James Pattinson.  One can suspect that the likes of Watson, Warner, Phil Hughes and even Usman Khawaja could have been seen as expectant rather than determined in years past.

The secret to inspiring responsibility is not to bestow it arbitrarily, but to encourage players to seek it out.  If Darren Lehmann has indeed figured this out, Australia will automatically become a far more fearsome proposition.

Short Pitch: On Mickey Arthur, Darren Lehmann and the Australian way of death

At least it was quick.

Mickey Arthur's eighteen month spell as Australian coach was terminated on Sunday, seventeen days before the first of ten consecutive Ashes Tests.  The South African has been almost instantly replaced by cult favourite Darren "Boof" Lehmann.  Arthur's reign was a fraught one, lowlighted by "homeworkgate" and four Australian players being dropped for failing to submit their reflections on a loss to India.

Lehmann has promised an improved team culture, based around three of his favourite things: beer, mates, and winning.  Arthur presided over an atmosphere of infighting and despair not entirely of his own design.  Changes had to be made no matter what the timing.  Parallels can be drawn with the AFL's Melbourne Football Club - a once-great organisation suffering off-field mismanagement, autocratic coaching with ambitious names eyeing his position resulting in the investiture of power in dubious positions.

Arthur's dismissal occurred slightly over two weeks before the largest date in the Aussie cricket calendar, an away Ashes series, when expectations are perhaps the lowest they've been for the Baggy Green since 1985. The series also provides a baptism of fire for the new guru as he helms an underwhelmingly-talented crew against one of the world's best lineups.

When the penny drops that a change is not only beneficial but necessary, making that change immediately and without mercy is a very pragmatic - read: Old Australian - way of doing things.  The reverse - often employed in world football - sees a manager sacked before a series of winnable games, allowing for a relatively easy transition into a new way of playing.  Such advance - and often wrong - forethought smacks of the current Cricket Australia thinking, making Arthur's instantaneous demise such a shock.

Facing the Old Enemy ten times over the next seven months, Australia didn't have such a luxury, so a sudden and brutal guillotining was seen as the best method to dispose of a lame duck.  The most comparable occasion occurred in 1970-71, when Bill Lawry absorbed the wrath of a (similarly) perpetually discombobulated executive panel.

It's the first gutsy move that Cricket Australia has made in recent memory.  It has installed a popular - and perhaps the best - candidate in a position where he might be able to create a positive change in attitude, fortunes and results quite quickly.  For this, they should be congratulated; however, it's also a tacit admission that this upcoming Ashes series is all but lost and focus must be cast upon the return series this summer: no coach can be expected to make such an immediate turnaround.