Just under two months ago, Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland boarded a plane in Melbourne bound for Hobart.
It was day four of the second Test between Australia and South Africa and the hosts were staggering about like the drunkest man at the party. They had been rolled for 85 in the first innings, their lowest at home in 32 years.
![Skipper Steve Smith ... a greater say in selections.](/web/20170108200454im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/j/s/j/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtmwk4.png/1483664555875.jpg)
"When I flew down the Test match wasn't over – but we weren't going well," Sutherland recalled. "But I was hoping to be there for the last stages of the Test match. As it turned out, it ended very quickly. By the time I arrived, it was all over. I don't ordinarily go back to a Test match having already been there for the first two days. But we knew some decisions needed to be made to restart the summer."
On Thursday morning, Sutherland flew out of Sydney for Melbourne under grey skies that were delaying Pakistan's seemingly inevitable demise and a 3-0 series defeat at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but this time he had every right to feel at ease with the state of the game.
![Peter Handscomb reached his second century in four Tests in Sydney.](/web/20170108200454im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/l/r/k/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtmwk4.png/1483664555875.jpg)
Did that really happen? Was it all a bad dream?
Australian cricket had been on its knees in November. Hobart signalled a fifth consecutive Test defeat. The series loss to South Africa at home followed a series loss away to Sri Lanka and now not just the team but the very game – the national pastime itself – had reached a new nadir.
Apart from the usual theories about Australia's top order being flat-track bullies and the hit-and-giggle of Twenty20 ruining techniques and temperaments, this crisis went deeper than normal and the mob wanted blood. Keyboards were bashed and smartphones thumbed with furious anger.
Get rid of Sutherland. Get rid of chairman of selectors Rod Marsh. Coach Darren Lehmann. That bloody Pat Howard, the high-performance manager. Change the team. Dump all of the team. OK, just get rid of at least one Marsh: Mitch or Shaun, take your pick.
![Australia's Matt Renshaw – new blood in the Test team.](/web/20170108200454im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/l/j/9/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtmwk4.png/1483664555875.jpg)
The outrage from mid-November has now dissolved. Traditionalists had been as sceptical as the players about the day-night Test in Adelaide two summers ago. South Africa had to be dragged to the party.
From now on, tickets to a pink ball Test will be as sought after as a Springsteen concert. (Remember, it's Adelaide).
At the Gabba, they installed a pool for the first match against Pakistan and it got as much airtime as the game itself as the biggest crowd outside of the Ashes attended a Brisbane Test.
Then the Big Bash League started and the kids came running, decked out in the magenta of the Sixers or the lime green of the Thunder.
Almost half of the matches so far this season have been sell-outs. Channel Ten has hit the live sport jackpot: most matches drag in more than a million viewers. Most tellingly, the BBL has marginalised the A-League to a relative afterthought.
Yet it is the format of the game played by men in white by which the game's health is measured. The BBL might be its future – but the Test team represents a long, proud past.
"People can understandably look at the health of the game through the narrow window of the Australian Test team," Sutherland said. "Scratch the surface and go lower and there are a whole lot of things we weren't doubtful about. People do care. And they care about the men's Australian Test team more than any other in the country."
After the mercy dash to Hobart, dramatic changes were made.
Marsh sniffed the breeze and wisely resigned. Lehmann has stepped back and Smith has more control again. Smith met with selector Mark Waugh following the Hobart disaster and it's understood he has more say in selections.
Players have been pushed aside and young players blooded in the most significant change to the Test side since the 1970s during the World Series Cricket revolution. Matt Renshaw and Peter Handscomb have feasted on runs.
Smith has been condemned by some former players for his captaincy, but on his watch his side grimly hung on for victory in Brisbane with minutes and overs to spare, and then stormed home with a flurry of wickets in Melbourne with minutes and overs to spare.
Perhaps, we're the problem; a fickle public too quick to judge, too hasty to write off players before they're cooked.
Take veteran off-spinner Nathan Lyon.
He was a dead man walking on the final day at the MCG. Then he took three critical wickets and booked his spot on the plane for the tour of India next month, when the Test side will again come under intense scrutiny if it doesn't succeed on dust bowl pitches that have confounded even the greatest Australian sides.
Australia last won a series there in 2004. Before that, it was 1969. The result won't matter as much as how the team plays; that will determine if the obituaries are written about the death of Australian cricket.
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