IAN Chappell is expressing fears of Australian cricket downfall. Ashes losses in 2009 and 2010-11 followed by a dismal show in the 2011 World Cup had already set the alarm bells ringing. Now Michael Clarke and company have provided solid grounds for Chappell’s anxiety after they suffered a startling 0-4 Test series hammering in India, indeed a rare occurrence in modern Aussie cricket history.

Focusing mainly on the batting frailties which he believes are not being addressed by Cricket Australia (CA) authorities, Chappell has underlined the root causes of the declining standards of upcoming batsmen his country is now producing: frequency of short-format cricket (mainly T20) played by youngsters; tracks prepared for Sheffield Shield games; and a jumbled schedule featuring five-day Test matches — the highest form of the classical sport — and limited-overs cricket particularly T20s.

Australians are known to be mighty serious about their cricketing credentials. Playing conditions, quality of opponent and magnitude of target to be achieved don’t matter to them. They just fight and fight to win with their blood up till the last ball! In fact high-class games right from around mid 1990s until around 2010 kept the cricket world adorned with innumerable glorious individual and team performances by battled-hardened Aussies.

Chappell however, feels that with the recent retirement of stalwarts like Ponting and Michael Hussey and with only Clarke — from that rich crop of Aussie batsmen having emerged in recent years — left on the international stage, Australia may never have the lavish batting resources they proudly have had during the last twenty years or so.For some Chappell’s worry may not carry substantial weight as it was only early 2012 that M.S. Dhoni’s men had met the same fate in a four-Test rubber Down Under. Moreover looking at their Test record during the last three years (matches 33, won 14, lost 13, drawn 6) there should not be any major panic among Australia’s cricket players and administrators, at least for the time being.

In the meantime, there was another clean-sweep in the world of Test cricket: Graeme Smith’s high-flying brigade smacked an aimless Pakistan 3-0 at home. Surprises? Pakistan, besides several Test series defeats, have had a few of those over the years. So, no surprises! Amid a long sequence of on- and off-the-field thrashings and setbacks of perhaps every kind, Pakistan cricket kept going thanks to the rich cricketing passion, raw flair we possess. The same passion and flair which handed us some glorious wins including the World Cup in 1992 and World Twenty20 crown in 2009. All achievements sans consistency though.

While Pakistan is likely to continue grappling in top-level challenges of world cricket for years, there are strong chances Australia will overcome the ongoing slump much sooner. Let us pass this notion through a compact analysis.

Both Australia and Pakistan hold abundant cricketing aptitude and the love of the game due to which cricket competitions featuring any of the two offer tremendous excitement courtesy the supremely natural abilities many of their ‘born to play cricket’ youngsters exhibit. Both the countries possess unique cricket cultures which determine their peculiar ways of operating at domestic and international levels.

However, there is a point dividing the two countries’ cricket — administration. Primarily functioning of team managements and running of the game by the highest authorities — Cricket Australia (CA) and the Pakistan Cricket board (PCB).

While Australian cricket is governed by a comprehensive, object-based and equal-for-all system, approach in Pakistan is very much hiccups-laden, hasty, sort of contra to Aussie governance (no debate on this I reckon)!

Steve Waugh, the 1999 World Cup winning-captain and one of the indisputable heroes of world cricket history, was overlooked by CA authorities for the 2003 World Cup. Simply because — as CA must have taken it — the ageing legend had no role in Australian limited-overs cricket anymore. An exquisite victory under Ponting in the 2003 World Cup then explicitly showed the prudence behind CA’s decision of dropping 325-ODI Waugh. The judicious move also enabled Ponting and company to excel further as they successfully defended the world crown again in 2007.

Contrarily, Pakistan has had no serious, long-term planning by their administrators for sustained improvement. Take a look at the present scenario. Misbah-ul-Haq, who will be 39 come May 28, is our Test and ODI captain. While giving due credit to Misbah for serving Pakistan cricket in a professional, praiseworthy and controversy-free manner under catastrophic circumstances in the post-2010 fixing saga era, the questions are: for how long will Misbah carry on in ODIs? With less than two years left in the 2015 World Cup has the PCB think-tank devised any plans for the mega event? Apparently none!

Misbah’s late resurgence with the bat in limited-overs games is duly acknowledged, but will it benefit the national team consistently in progressing smoothly? Has the PCB management formulated any appropriate strategy for a stage-wise change of guard in national team’s leadership?

In fact, the current PCB hierarchy, if it does not take a timely decision soon, will be in a huge fix, the same fix Pakistan faced after retaining 37-year-old Inzamam-ul-Haq, who had passed his prime, as their skipper for the 2007 World Cup.

The result we achieved in that Cup, we all know, was an absolute disaster. Had they given consistent chances to Misbah (after he had made his Test debut way back in 2001 and ODI debut in 2002), he would have been groomed appropriately for the 2007 Cup when he was 32 and at the peak of his career. Unfortunately it was not to be! Therefore, the question for the PCB is: has it learned any lesson from 2007? Hopefully they will, sooner than later.

Players discipline is a major headache for sporting team managements around the world. Here too Aussies have a clear edge over their Pakistan counterparts.

If head coach Mickey Arthur ousted four of his players, including vice-captain Shane Watson, for Test selection in India recently, for discipline breach it shows the significance Australian cricket attaches with discipline as well as with which degree of authority their team managements should have.

Please do not forget that even the iconic, match-winning leg-spinning wizard Shane Warne — also one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century — had been suspended for one year by CA for drug use, just before the start to the 2003 World Cup.

The PCB and its appointed managements — particularly national team managements — seldom have the guts or authority to take such decisions, and secondly even if some of them after all take a decision like this it often balloons into an unwarranted crisis amid reports of alleged player power and groupings within team. The player suspensions for alleged team wrangling on the 2009-10 tour to Australia is an appropriate example here. Several Pakistan team players, including seniors, were suspended, before the bans were overturned a few months later without any proper, transparent procedure.

The outcome? The nightmarish 2010 match-fixing scandal that exploded in England! Rest is all history.

Space does not allow me to mention many other cases of turmoil in Pakistan cricket, happening and brewing mainly due to the unprofessional approach of our cricket authorities concerned. No wonder we are suffering, and I fear, will continue to undergo this agony in top-class cricket clashes ahead.

Though PCB chief Zaka Ashraf has declared “no panic button” after Pakistan’s recent tour to South Africa, will Dav Whatmore get authority, according to the team’s professional requirements is another question.

Chappell has his personal apprehensions. Presently, Australians no doubt are looking down the barrel. However, they will recover, sooner or later, to regain the pride their predecessors have earned over the years.

Arthur’s assertion in his explanatory remarks over the India Test selection incident is enough to back this forecast: “We want to be the Spanish football team, Manchester United or McLaren of world cricket.” And with 32-year-old run-machine Clarke at the helm, Australia can hope for better things to come their way.