An open letter to the Australian selectors

My dear selectors,

As I sit down to write this, it is one hour and forty-eight minutes until the beginning of the Fifth Test. I would have been marginally optimistic about our chances at The Oval, but now I'm not. This is why.

Earlier today my ever-diligent Twitter feed informed me that Usman Khawaja and Jackson Bird were to be swapped out of the side for James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc, respectively. I greeted this news with my trademark facepalm of incredulity and exhaustion. It's not that I don't rate the two players selected (in Starc's case re-re-selected); my problem is that, yet again, you feel the need to chop and change the side in a desperate bid to find the "winning combination" that will miraculously reverse Australia's decline and enable us to win Test matches again. As though the solution were that simple. As though it were even a solution at all.

I feel you have been frighted by the way this Ashes series has panned out so far. Admittedly, 3-0 does not look good, but 3-0 disguises the fact that this Ashes series has been a much more closely-fought contest than the scoreline suggests. Just as 1-0 disguised the fact that Trent Bridge could very easily have been Australia's, 3-0 disguises the fact that the tables could easily have been turned: the series could easily have been 3-0 to Australia but for a variety of turns of fortune. Had Haddin and Pattinson been able to push on to snag those last 15 runs at Trent Bridge; had the rain held off on the fifth day of Old Trafford; had Stuart Broad not inexplicably found the form of his life in Australia's second innings at Chester-le-Street: Australia could have been 3 matches up right now.

But it so happens that Australia is not. It so happens that Australia, instead, is 3-0 down on the day of the Fifth Test. Irregardless, Australia have performed better than the unflattering scoreline suggests. In the same way, England have performed worse than 3-0 suggests. Of England's main three batsmen - Cook, Trott and Pieterson - only Pieterson has performed anywhere near his best. With Root, Bairstow and Prior having proven to be lame ducks (other than Root's stellar, yet anomalous, 180), England has largely been dragged across the line by the heroic efforts of Ian Bell, their one success story this series. England have not yet posted an innings total above 400. Australia have. All of Old Trafford and most of Chester-le-Street were dominated by Australia. England have not dominated this series any more than Australia have.

That has not stopped you, the Australian selectors, from frantically cannibalising the Australian lineup after every loss. Rather than holding your nerve and being brave enough to play the same side, or largely the same side, for a whole series, you've descended into a frenzy of ritual slaughter. Ed Cowan, despite having been a regular in the Australian top order for well over a year now, was dropped after one match. His successor, Usman Khawaja, has now been dropped after only three matches. Jackson Bird was dropped after one match for, I suppose, not being as successful as his exceptional figures promised. Whether these changes were for better or for worse, I'm struggling to understand the reasoning. All I see is knee-jerk, reflexive responses to matches that haven't gone the way we wanted them to.

You see, chaps, it is one thing to always play the best performers. It is quite another to keep changing the side when our "best performers" aren't delivering the results we wanted them to. Every player goes through rough patches. You can't expect batsmen to consistently make 40+ runs every innings, or for bowlers to take 4+ wickets every innings (especially when Ryan Harris is taking them all). Moreover, you can't pluck players with little or no international experience from domestic cricket, expect them to immediately perform to form in Test cricket, and then drop them when they don't meet your lofty expectations. Nurturing quality Test cricketers takes time, commitment and, above all, patience. When a player is always aware that he is playing for his spot in the side, he will rarely perform to his best. Apprehension, nerves and doubt will enter his game, and he will play negatively and unnaturally.

So my plea to you is this: pick the XI, and a couple more, whom you want to be Australia's long-term Test players*. Stick with them. Invest in them. Commit to them. Let them develop. Let them know that their place in the side is settled. If they don't immediately perform, stick with them. If they go through rough patches, stick with them. If they don't make a hundred until their 26th Test or even pull their average above 30 until their 23rd Test, stick with them. The selectors of the '80s and '90s did for Steve Waugh, and just look how he turned out.

There is no quick-fix to take Australia back to ascendency. This is a rebuilding process that takes time and long-term investment. We may not see the fruits of our labour for years. But constantly changing the face of the Australian side at this dizzying rate is vain, damaging, and achieves nothing. Put in the hard yards to rebuild Australian cricket and you will be rewarded. I promise.

*An exception can be made for Chris Rogers.

Are these the green shoots of recovery?

It looked like Australian cricket was at its lowest point in decades. Having barely missed out on pipping the #1 Test rank position against South Africa over the Summer, we went on to lose two of the last truly great Australian cricketers from the national side, suffer a 4-0 defeat against India amid shambolic management and disciplinary controversy, and were relegated to rank #4 in Test cricket. Then Shane Watson stood down from the vice-captaincy after poor showings and leadership in India. To top it all off, we've just emerged bottom of our group in the ICC Champions Trophy without a single win to our name.

An optimist would think "Surely things can't get any worse? Surely it can only get better from here, right?" It's beginning to look as though such an attitude could be justified. In the space of twenty-four hours, Cricket Australia has announced the addition of Steve Smith to the Ashes squad, the sacking of Micky Arthur as head coach and his replacement by Darren Lehmann, the standing-down of Michael Clarke as a selector, and - joy of joys - the end of the rotation policy.

Could it be that we are, finally, witnessing the green shoots of recovery? We should naturally hesitate from making any such Lamont-esque remarks, but it certainly seems so. One could be forgiven for thinking that the CA grandees had suddenly come to a miraculous epiphany and, by the work of God's grace, repented their sins and amended their ways.

That Steve Smith, The Cricket Hooligan's favourite up-and-coming young cricketer, has been added to the Ashes squad makes him wonder whether John Inverarity et al. read his humble e-rag. Certainly they had demonstrated an uncommon display of sense when it was announced they had appointed Smith as captain of the Australia A squad to tour Africa. It was a sign of things to come, I thought at the time; against a dearth of genuine talent of the calibre of the great Australian teams of old, Steve Smith stands out as a profoundly exciting prospect for the future of Australian cricket. It is most reassuring that Cricket Australia have finally caught on to this.

It is equally reassuring that Cricket Australia have had the sense to sack the man responsible for #homeworkgate and, not least, 4-0 against India. There have beens suggestions that Justin Langer could have been a better replacement, but I suppose Darren Lehmann is a good choice in any case - anyone would have been an improvement on Micky Arthur. Lehmann carried Queensland and Brisbane Heat to great success under his veteran stewardship, and the hope is that he will transfer his success in coaching of Queensland to the national squad. Perhaps there won't be enough time to salvage the Ashes in England, but the appointment of Boof is a positive step for the future.

I suppose Michael Clarke's standing down as a selector is for the best. I have always thought that, instead of the captain being a selector, he ought to have the final word on player selection decisions made by the National Selection Panel. But I suppose the choice really must be all or nothing: either the captain is the head selector, or the captain is not a selector at all; none of this awkward halfway house, please.

And so we come to the scrapping of the rotation policy. Virtually everyone except John Inverarity and Glenn Maxwell will be overjoyed to hear that the dreaded policy is to come to an end. We can be sure there won't be too many mourners at its funeral, nor too many tears shed as its expired corpse enters the crematory. Will we see a return to the culture of excellence and leadership that distinguished those great Australian teams under Border, Taylor, Waugh and Ponting? Will we see a strong, dependable and consistent Australian Test side without constant face-changes that dazzle and bewilder the fans? Will we see again the kind of strong team culture, distinctive of a tight-knit team at ease with itself and each other, that characterised the great Australian teams of the nineties and noughties? The latter we see today in the currently dominant teams, particularly in England and South Africa - testament to the fact that a strong team cannot necessarily just be built on the best players; a strong team culture, where the players know each other in and out, is essential for building great teams.

Are we seeing a recovery from the ashes (so to speak) in Australian cricket? There's every sign that we are, and I jolly well hope so.