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KEY POINTS:
Australian cricket fans, to lift the local vernacular, have been doing it tough this summer.
Not since New Zealand beat Australia in back-to-back test series in 1985-86 have Australia been as vulnerable as they are now.
During the series in New Zealand in 1986, captain Allan Border threatened to pack in the leadership in disgust at the way the Aussies were playing.
From that point, under successive hard-headed leaders in Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, Australia have run the cutter of world cricket. Until now.
Irrespective of last night's outcome, there is open talk of crisis in the Australian game.
How has it come to this since that 5-0 belting of England to regain the Ashes in 2006-07 when all seemed fair in the good ship Australia?
On Saturday, captain and stellar batsman Ricky Ponting incredibly had to plead with the national selectors to be allowed to play yesterday, having been ordered to have two games rest.
So as they lurch towards the end of a shambolic season, what's gone wrong?
1: The loss of the great players
Within a short space of time, Australia lost a clutch of alltime greats - Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne with the ball, batsmen Steve and Mark Waugh, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, and Adam Gilchrist, the greatest of all wicketkeeper-batsmen.
Their replacements are nowhere near the same calibre. There's no crime there. You don't replace star performers with a click of the fingers. But the old bristling aggression, the forceful personalities have gone. So too the assumption of victory.
2: Injuries
At one point Australia had nine players sidelined this season. This is not to say they were all world beaters, but they were good, experienced internationals such as Michael Clarke, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Andrew Symonds. At times Australia were down to third choices.
3: The results
A spinoff from the first two points but even so they lost the test series in India 2-0, the home tests to South Africa 2-1, then the ODI series 4-1 and now, shock horror, they are trailing New Zealand whom they don't really rate, despite public utterances to the contrary.
Australia are learning about defeat, something they rarely had to during the golden era represented by Border, Taylor and Waugh. The aura is gone.
5: Andrew Symonds
He may be a boofhead with a fondness for the bottle, but on the field Symonds filled an important role with bat, ball and in the field. His absence, firstly through suspension, then injury has left a substantial hole.
6: The leadership
Ponting is an ordinary skipper who, having had great cricketers at his disposal, is having to work with inferior material. If Australia got in a jam, he could toss the ball to McGrath or Warne and know he'd get a dividend. Not any more.
But he won't get sacked, which is not to say he's much chop at it. Australia simply don't dump their skippers, and the man earmarked as his heir apparent suddenly doesn't look the sure bet he had been.
Ponting has seemed unsure of himself and his bowlers in the field. His constant chatting with bowlers during overs has cost him, and his players, money in slow over rate fines more than once.
Are his bowlers so thick they simply can't remember their lines, or does Ponting lack sufficient faith in them?
7: The vice-captain
Ponting's relationship with his No 2 Clarke is known to be ordinary. Mutual respect for their batting talents aside, they are light and dark.
They are not natural soulmates. Those in the dressing room pick up the vibes.
Ponting is all working class, a tough scrapper brought up among some ruthless, uncompromising cricket men.
Clarke has a high-profile girlfriend, Lara Bingle, the bling, the glitzy lifestyle. He's modelled in his underwear and is seen at all the right parties. It's Prada vs pragmatism; flash and dash vs old school.
Senior players privately don't rate his leadership and tactical acumen and question where his priorities lie.
8: The Clarke-Katich stoush
Call this the latest PR calamity, and all over a four-line ditty which ends with an expletive.
Clarke and his New South Wales teammate Simon Katich - very much old school and known for an occasionally explosive temper - clashed over when to sing the traditional post-victory song after beating South Africa in Sydney last month.
Australia are not singing from the same sheet. The song incident is a snapshot which gets to the heart of the matter.
The old heads yearn for what was; the newcomers have a different outlook. What is beyond debate is that much of the strong work of the past 20 years has fallen apart.
