So what can we gauge from Tim Nielsen’s response to Duncan Fletcher’s criticism?

Former England coach Fletcher said in a newspaper column this week that Australian cricket is in its most “muddled state” in 30 years.

I beg to differ.

Australian cricket still had a few years of decline ahead of it in 1980.

You might say the darkest hour was Kim Hughes’ resignation on November 26, 1984, though it probably wasn’t until Allan Border’s World Cup-winning men of 1987, or perhaps the tied Test against India in Madras (now Chennai) in 1986, that we began to see the light of a brighter day.

So who can blame Australia coach Nielsen for going off at such slander?

The worst Australian team in 24 years would have been much more accurate and maybe if Fletcher had said as much Nielsen would not have been quite so incensed.

Then again...

It was pointed out that if you really don’t care what someone says, you’re not likely to react to it.

So Nielsen’s “You can quote me on this, we could not care less what Duncan Fletcher thinks about anything or anyone,” smacks of a man who really is quite worried.

I’m guessing he’s not much of a poker player.

Fletcher has a habit of drawing the bile from Australian cricketers.

When England substitute fielder Gary Pratt (could he have been more appropriately named?) ran Australia captain Ricky Ponting out in the Trent Bridge Test in the 2005 Ashes series, Ponting launched a foul-mouthed tirade at England coach Fletcher, who was grinning down at him from the player’s balcony as Ponting left the field.

I’m guessing Nielsen feels a bit the same as Ponting did then – concerned the Ashes is about to be taken from him and looking for someone other than himself to blame.

Uneasy consciences are hard to keep quiet.

Jay Buchan is a sports reporter on the Queensland Times newspaper and will be blogging throughout the Ashes series.

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