SYDNEY – Australian cricket chiefs Thursday enlisted the help of three of the country’s greatest Ashes captains to find out why the Test team imploded in their last major battle against England. Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, who led Australia to their most sustained period of Ashes dominance, will be part of a team performance review panel commissioned by Cricket Australia (CA). The review panel is charged with working out what has gone so wrong following beatings, including Australia’s 3-1 Ashes defeat in the series that ended in January, and what needs to be done to reverse the decline.
“The review group has been asked to understand the causes of the Australian cricket team’s recent performance decline in Test matches and recommend changes to deliver sustained success,” CA said in a statement. The panel will be headed by Don Argus, former chairman of Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton while former International Cricket Council and Australian Cricket Board chief executive Malcolm Speed will be his deputy.
While the review aims to improve Australia’s performances in one-day and Twenty20 cricket as well as in Tests, it was sparked by the heavy Ashes series loss and Australia’s slump from No.1 to fifth in the Test rankings. “The catalyst for the review was our poor performance in the Ashes and probably losing the Ashes two series in a row,” CA chairman Jack Clarke said.
