Aussies require kick on the protector to get out of pre-Ashes stupor

SYDNEY - The Australian cricket teams, despite its lucrative guaranteed contracts, are victims of expectations massively inflated by a generation of great success, and also of their own cricketing bureaucracy, which has blundered with selection and now the Ashes preparation, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

On Wednesday night, Sri Lanka mounted what was at first an amusing rearguard action and then charged towards a victory as memorable as any in a limited-overs game can be.

Now, having lost a second consecutive match at the SCG, the Australians, selectors included, will need a kick in the protector to shake them from their torpor before the Ashes battle is joined in Brisbane.

“This Australian team has appeared so confused and disoriented, there is a good chance it forgot to put the protector on. A kick like the one delivered by Sri Lanka could geld our former studs. The Australian team that again failed to put away a beaten opponent was the one-day outfit rather than the Test version,” the SMH says.

“The growing impatience of fans is an inevitable consequence of a string of poor results in all forms of the game - outcomes made far less tolerable by the feeling that Australia will not put its strongest possible team on the park come the first Test. Simultaneously, the period of grace has expired,” it adds.

The Australian team is being second-guessed, even reviled.

Hussey and North are on everyone’s chopping block, Mitchell Johnson is cast as the wholesale distributor of overpriced pies, many doubt Nathan Hauritz could turn the key to his front door and the only time Michael Clarke’s popularity rating has nudged above that of Kyle Sandilands was when he dumped Lara Bingle. (ANI)