Given the events of May 2013, Mickey Arthur's confessed feelings about coaching Pakistan against Australia are even less 'surreal' than the fact that it is Darren Lehmann who is under more pressure to keep his job.
Whew. That's a sigh of relief, not a reaction to a bad smell. For a moment the Australian cricket team was at its lowest point since the mid-1980s. But that kind of talk is so two weeks ago.
A man, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, is what he thinks about all day long. What then was Tiger Woods? What he thought about all day, or what he thought about all night?
Australia might have hit rock bottom during the series with South Africa, but they are still searching for depth.
The most frequently asked question this cricket season is: 'Are they that good or are we that bad?' Or, a year ago when Australia were playing the West Indies: 'Are they that bad or are we that good?'
The promoters of day-night Test cricket have declared the experiment a success, yet it is far from a sure thing that next summer's Ashes series will feature a pink-ball game.
Cometh the hour, cometh the annoying little prick. If the wicketkeeper is the drummer in a cricketing band, Australia had ditched Charlie Watts and brought in Keith Moon.
It is impossible, given the resemblance, not to see Australia's 20-year-old debutant opening batsman Matt Renshaw as the new Matthew Hayden. Before we get carried away, though, we might remember that it took seven years before the old Matthew Hayden became Matthew Hayden.
There is no hiding from reality, and you have to wonder if the infantilising of our cricketers, with support staff to take every adult need away from them so that their minds are free to concentrate on cricket and cricket alone, is doing them a favour.
After the humiliating defeat to South Africa, Steve Smith bemoaned a loss of pride in the Baggy Green ... while hiding under a sponsor's cap.
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