Collapses have become part of divided team's DNA Michael Clarke loses his off stump to Stuart Broad during a dramatic fourth day's play at Durham. FOLLOWERS of Australian cricket know all about rude awakenings. They turn off the light with their team 0-109 chasing 299 and they wake up the next morning to discover the player they hate most in the whole world has just bowled England to what in the history books will look a comfortable victory. They will ask themselves how on earth that could have happened, though perhaps they will phrase the question in less genteel fashion. And perhaps that's the starting point today: to stop asking nicely. When even The Times, which yesterday devoted seven pages to celebrating England's 3-0 Ashes victory, not counting the cricket-dominated front page, poses the question of whether Michael Clarke could benefit from developing a nastier side, it's time to pause and reflect. Outsiders always see us better than we see ourselves and right at this moment, today, England sees Australia smiling in the face of defeat. That's admirable in one sense but it also suggests an alarming degree of acceptance, that defeat is starting to come a little too easily to this Australian team. And lately it does. Thank heavens for Old Trafford because if that match had gone the way of everything else lately, Australians would have woken up yesterday to their eighth straight Test defeat. Who knows precisely what goes on behind closed doors, although it's understood new coach Darren Lehmann has resorted to the hair dryer approach on more than one occasion lately, but until now there's a sense that anyone messing up is getting a comforting arm around their shoulder, not the cuffing behind the ear they deserve. Steve Smith drops a sitter at long-on because he doesn't get his hands in nearly the right position - something he knows himself because the cameras capture him soon after practising the correct technique - and his teammates all smile encouragingly at him, all save Nathan Lyon who needs every wicket he can get to convince the selectors he should be as much a fixture in the Australian side as Graeme Swann is in England's. Because of Smith's mistake, England scores a bonus 13 runs from the next Ryan Harris over, with Swann recklessly throwing the bat at everything, before Lyon gets the last wicket a second time by dismissing James Anderson. But in the context of a close-fought match, how psychologically damaging were those freebie runs? There was a time when a batsman returning to the dressing room after scoring a century would be greeted not by hugs from Allan Border but a bullocking for playing a loose shot to bring up their ton. When Dean Jones, dehydrated and semi-delirious vomited 15 times and pissed his pants while batting at Madras in 1986, where was the consoling arm from Border? "If you can't bat, I'll get a real Australian out here" were the only words of comfort he received from his captain. Jones made 210. One less run and Australia would have lost because this happened in only the second tied Test ever played. Runs count. Every single one. Smith, meanwhile, scored two before playing on while attempting to hook Broad. Has he not heard of ducking? What was the rush? Looking out the window as I write this in Newcastle, there is nothing but blue sky overhead - perfect batting conditions. Yet this scheduled fifth day is going unused because the Australian second innings was done in 69 overs when every other innings in the match lasted at least 90. "Some of the shot selection was poor," coach Darren Lehmann would say later. This is not about targeting Smith, because he was far from the only player at fault. But collapses have now become part of the DNA of this Australian team. In this series alone it lost 9-117 and 8-120 at Trent Bridge, 10-86 and 7-101 at Lord's and 9-77 at Durham. They're like wildebeests, these Australian cricketers. A lion appears and they stampede. Yes, panto villain Stuart Broad bowled brilliantly. "When any good bowler gets their tail up and gets momentum they are generally hard to stop," Clarke observed. True enough. The force was with him but where was the countervailing force from under the baggy green? If Broad could dig deep enough and find the strength of mind to reach speeds of 146km/h yesterday when he's barely hit 140 at any other time in the series, why could not the Australians dig deep too to keep him out? Actually Chris Rogers did and David Warner too. But Rogers is the role model. He gutsed this Test out, occupying the wicket for 350 balls. He can be an elegant shot-maker as he showed in Manchester but at Durham he did what he needed to do to survive and if at times he batted ugly in order to do that, then so be it. He and Warner saw Broad off when he should have been at his most dangerous, with the new ball. They dug in. Their teammates didn't. Cricket Australia sacked a good man, Mickey Arthur, as coach on the eve of the Ashes rather than deal with the real problem, the divide in the dressing room. And while Lehmann is undoubtedly having a positive effect, the underlying problems remain. Team members cannot be team players "sometimes." Until Australia's batsmen plumb the very depths of their being to fight, as Rogers and Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle have fought throughout this series, then this side is going to remain on the wrong side of the victory-defeat divide. Australia has now lost four of the past five Ashes series, a sequence that predates just about everyone in the current team, bar Clarke. So the problem is much wider than merely the foibles of the present players. The buck stops with CA boss James Sutherland. The Argus review largely spared him but he has been the man at the helm while CA has alienated its traditional and loyal support base to chase a new and infinitely more fickle fan. And that would be bad enough except that in attempting to broaden its appeal, Australian cricket has dramatically weakened its base. These systemic problems have been raked over for some time and they will take some more time to fix, if there is the will. But for the moment, bloody-minded strength of will is the only quick fix. The next Ashes Test, the next Ashes series won't be won by Australia's cricketers sitting around feeling wretched. As George S. Patton once put it: "Wars aren't won by dying for your country. They're won by making the other silly son of a bitch die for his country. Australian cricket has to toughen up. Or very soon a lot of players, coaches and officials are going to have a rude awakening.