Come on Aussie, just come on, please?!?

IT'S beautiful really. You, YouTube, a glass of scotch and more batting highlights than you can poke a stick at.

Gilchrist, the bowler's Anti-Christ. Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, all elegance and timing. Steve Waugh, all bloody-mindedness; Matthew Hayden, just bloody for bowlers. Beautiful times, were they not?

If you want something from this decade you've a hell of a task. There's Michael Clarke against South Africa, Michael Hussey against England, Michael Clarke against India, Michael Hussey against Sri Lanka. Therein lies the problem: of Australia's 37 Test centuries since January 1 2010, 20 came from a man called Michael. Of the current Ashes squad pugilist David Warner has three; Matthew Wade has two; with Ed Cowan, Brad Haddin, Phil Hughes and Shane Watson scoring one each. Compare this to the 90s and early 2000s when batsmen like Stuart Law, Martin Love and Brad Hodge struggled to get a meaningful run; where Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn, Simon Katich and even Matthew Hayden hit century after century before they could get in green.

So what happened? The bowling seems to be coming along nicely; provided of course that Messrs Cummins, Pattinson, Bird and Starc keep developing and stay injury-free. But watching Australia bat is like getting blind drunk and playing Five-Finger Fillet - every now and then you'll pull it off, but you know deep down it's going to end in tears.

So what went wrong?

For starters, Cricket Australia did themselves no favours by tinkering with the format of the Second XI competition. Back in 2002/03 a group of dedicated amateurs covered Cricket ACT matches against the South Australia and Western Australian Second XI's for local radio. While there were plenty of young guns like Shaun Tait, Adam Voges, Beau Casson and Luke Ronchi in the opposition ranks, they were being led by some seriously experienced heads. Former Australian ODI representative Brad Young scored a century and took 14 wickets for South Australia; Stuart Karppinen, Nathan Adcock, Jeff Vaughan and Mark Harrity were all in their late twenties and looking to play themselves back into first-class cricket. In short, it was the perfect combination of youth and experience that made these matches the perfect nursery for talented young cricketers.

Fast-forward to 2009 and Cricket Australia decided to tinker. The Second XI competition became the Futures League, with only three over-23s allowed in each team. While this article from The Roar's Brett McKay at the time suggested good things for Australian cricket and Australian spinners, it didn't take long for the players to voice their concerns. In his book In The Firing Line, Ed Cowan (a late-bloomer himself) made this point:

All of a sudden accomplished players in the larger states ... were merely treading water if they found themselves out of favour or form, relegated to playing club cricket that they had dominated for six, seven or eight years already. In their place, talented but not yet ripe youngsters, not quite across the game as a whole, let alone their own, were given preferences for places. It has taken a few years but we are now reaping what we sowed as a cricket community.

Tasmanian captain George Bailey wasn't a fan either:

 "It's become really difficult to have guys who aren't in your best XI, consistently playing good, hard cricket against other teams, with that under-23 rule," Bailey said. "I've got no doubt that cricket and the way the bodies are, you play your best cricket after you're 23, and it's much the same as the Australian team. I think the best Australian players are better for having a really strong first-class system and we're much the same."

 Nowadays teams are allowed six over-23 players; again, the late-bloomers and 24-year-olds don't seem to get much of a look-in. Combine this with the large amount of experience lost with the retirements of Warne, McGrath, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist et al, and it really wasn't a great time for anyone to be missing out on some tough cricket.

Discipline seems to be a problem as well. During Australia's fallow period in the mid-1980s many had the talent, yet few had the self-discipline that would make them truly great. When Bob Simpson became coach in 1986 he decided to run with a few players that he felt had the "ticker" necessary to consistently succeed at Test cricket, giving players like Steve Waugh and Ian Healy a long run over players like Greg Ritchie and Tim Zoehrer. Likewise, who wouldn't want to see a Chris Rogers, Sam Robson, Adam Voges or George Bailey get a run right now ahead of a David Warner or Shane Watson? Could it be that the aforementioned players are slightly hungrier by not playing Twenty20 cricket around the world?

So there are a couple of possible reasons for Australia's cricketing decline. Question is, how do we fix it so that Australian cricket highlights aren't archived in the "Classics" section of the internet?

Mitchell's Mysterious Ways

THOSE in the know fell hard for Mitchell Johnson.

Dennis Lillee was the first. Up in Townsville in the late 90s holding a fast-bowling camp, Lillee was quickly onto his great mate Rod Marsh after watching this young man deliver the ball with some serious pace - and with his left hand to boot. Marsh was next to fall. In an Inside Cricket article back in 2000 the Australian Cricket Academy coach told Kerry O'Keefe:

"It was the way the ball came out which impressed us most - like Dennis and Wasim Akram, Mitchell was genuinely quick off two paces ... In my opinion, he is better than Brett Lee was at the same age."

Queensland selectors seemed to agree, giving Johnson his first-class debut against the touring New Zealanders 12 months later. While this was six years before his Test debut, Johnson gave a small glimpse into what would come: his first first-class wicket was opener Mark Richardson spooning a half-volley to midwicket, while his opening (and only) runs came from his fifth ball, a hit over the boundary.

After his fourth set of stress fractures in his back, Johnson comes back and it's the turn of the Australian selectors to fall hard. He's selected for his first game in Australian colours - an ODI against New Zealand - but isn't ready for the big time. Coming in as the Australian replacement for Simon Katich, Johnson goes for 64 runs in nine overs.

This convinces the selectors to let Johnson incubate at state level for a little longer; hardly surprising given he'd played a whole 12 first-class games up to that point. A ten-wicket haul on a flat wicket in the 2005/06 Pura Cup final, a shockingly poor ODI against South Africa and a few moderate games against Bangladesh follow before he suddenly finds international form in the unlikely setting of Kuala Lumpur. Four Indian wickets in just eight balls - Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar among them - suddenly have the world sitting up and watching closely; soon after in India a 10-over spell of 3/40 against England has pundits like The Times Simon Wilde purring about how this young man with a pierced tongue and lip could be the key for Australia in that year's Ashes series.

By 2008/09 we'd all fallen hard. Eleven wickets against South Africa in Perth - in a losing cause no less - preceded his personal vendetta against Graeme Smith's fingers, breaking one on his left hand in the win in Sydney before breaking another on the right in Durban. That second injury came as Johnson recorded some of the most fearsome spells in Test cricket, dismissing Neil McKenzie and Hashim Amla in his first over, breaking Smith's finger in his second before coming back and forcing Jacques Kallis off after hitting him on the chin. Just to emphasise his point he then bowled Mark Boucher with the last ball before tea, then hit his maiden Test century in the next Test. Here was the man that Australian cricket could settle down with, raising a tribe of Australian quicks before retiring to the commentary box of choice next to other legends of the game.

Except, from a cricketing perspective, Johnson wasn't the settling type. Come the 2009 Ashes it turned out he really wasn't up to raising a tribe of quicks on his own; hell, he was barely able to raise anything apart from English scoring rates. When Australia took Johnson around to meet the parents at Lord's he didn't deliberately trash the place, but rather found himself unable to turn with disturbing the fine china. Three wickets for 200 runs at over five runs an over is ugly reading for any cricketer, let alone one who was supposed to lead Australia to new glories.

So we'd fallen out of love, and damned if we were going to let him back into our hearts without some evidence that he wasn't going to embarrass us again. And he tried. Truly he did. Consistent hauls against West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand convinced us all he'd turned a corner, that he'd come good - only for England to return and with it our feelings of disillusionment. Despite his nine-wicket haul in Perth, Johnson drifted out of contention, a foot injury after a South African series confirming that yes, he wasn't The One we were looking for.

Which brings us now to Johnson's latest Test incarnation. There were certainly many who took the news badly when Johnson was named against South Africa as Australia completely revamped their fast-bowling attack between Adelaide and Perth. While he performed credibly, and again in two Tests against Sri Lanka later that summer, only the most hopeless romantics believe he will lead Australia to future glory. Instead Johnson's become that rarest of beasts - the ex you keep in contact with, with whom you still get along.

Seems as though everyone's much happier with the result.