Australia its own worst enemy in run-up to Ashes The end of the last Ashes series felt like the end of the world for Australian cricket, but as is now apparent, it was a false bottom. Then at least, Australia had the excuse that it was out-thought and outplayed by England. Now, before a ball is bowled, it has outsmarted itself. Last summer, Australia kidded itself that it was keeping pace with No 1 ranked South Africa. By a quirk of the ranking system, it even might have fluked a deluded moment in first place itself. The fact is that it is hard to remember when Australian cricket last was in such a parlous state. The most recent comparable period was the dog days of mid-80s, when the twin impact of World Series Cricket and a rebel tour of South Africa were weighing. But that team at least had at its heart the redoubtable Allan Border. He was a reluctant captain, and no sort of statesman to begin, but when he realised that there was no-one but him, he hardened his heart and became the kernel around which an eventual champion team grew. He was never thanked enough. Mickey Arthur and Michael Clarke both needed someone to lean on. Importantly, Border played every game; he was Australia's rock. Michael Clarke, for reasons outside his control, struggles for fitness, and without him, this is frankly the most fragile Australian batting team in living memory. The selection of five openers suggests that the selectors knew Australia was going to spend a lot of time on this tour getting to first base (pardon the interdisciplinary metaphor). In the way of cricket matters, when Clarke is able to play, he covers up the myriad flaws (see South Africa series, above). His absences, in the Test series in India and in the abortive Champions Trophy campaign, magnify them. Now discipline and morale are at a low ebb, performance negligible. Yes, as in the 80s, another ritzy extracurricular competition is having a distracting effect, but it is on all countries. Notwithstanding, India, home and heart of the IPL, just won the misnamed Champions Trophy. Clarke is a master batsman and tactician, but not an inspiring leader of men, an NCO, but not a general. He and his former vice-captain, Shane Watson, remain hopelessly at odds. Theirs is not the only rift in the team. Reportedly, Dave Warner was not the first player in this team to face the prospect of being sent home. Mickey Arthur never was the man to rally this rabble. He is a coach in the former meaning of the word, a teacher and tutor rather than a director. He needed someone to lean on, but so did Clarke. It made for an unstable structure, and it collapsed. Now the rest of the Crawford-built edifice is teetering. Selection has become a revolving door, the principles guiding it inscrutable. John Inverarity brings appropriate gravitas to the position of chairman of selectors, but looks increaingly like the stony-faced captain on the bridge of the sinking ship. Pat Howard is the link between Cricket Australia's governance in transition and its disintegrating team, and every day looks less comfortable in the role. Management appears always to be reactive. Arthur became the scapegoat. Into this middle of this inglorious mess steps, or rather saunters, Darren Lehmann. On the face of it, he is an improbable go-to man. As a player, he was a swashbuckler, a maverick who never quite made the most of his prodigious talent. As a coach, he is an accident, invited into a job as Adam Gilchrist's assistant for an IPL franchise, without the least ambition or pretension. A job coaching Queensland and the Brisbane Heat followed. Nothing about his history or bearing suggests that he is the martinet, riot act in hand, many now think Australia needs. But a lot of nonsense is talked about culture in sport. You might begin to imagine that it is a matter of pressing a button, whereupon a group of sportsmen - by definition strong-minded and self-centred - will fall dumbly into line. The Sydney Swans, among other organisations, show that it is a much more subtle business than that. Lehmann, without appearing to change his happy-go-lucky ways, has had phenomenal success in a short time. He does not apologise for staying close to his players, saying brotherliness brings the best ouf of them. He has no fear of familiarity breeding contempt, nor insubordination, and says Queensland has a working, but private disciplinary system. Of course, on the national team, privacy will be harder to maintain. Lehmann is not bookish in the John Buchanan way, but nor is he entirely and stubbornly unreconstructed. Rather, he thinks of culture as a living thing. Instructively, his appointment immediately struck old hands in England as ominously sensible. In truth, it is pragmatic. The eve of an Ashes tour was not the time for the exhaustive international search that sports management always says it will conduct before it comes back to the man it had in mind in the first place. Whether it is desperation masquerading as inspiration, or inspiration born of desperation, soon we shall see. If you squint hard enough, there is a precedent. The history most Australians nostalgically invoke is 1989, when a widely scorned Australian team took all before it in England. But in terms of catharsis, the series to remember is the one Australia still is trying to forget. In 1981, England fell 1-0 behind Australia in England, sacked Ian Botham as captain, installed the wily Mike Brearley and went on to win the series 3-1 on the back of the breathtaking individual feats of Botham. This is the depth to which Australian cricket has sunk, that it must now look to England for hope. Total votes: 13875.