As pressure rises on Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland, High-Performance Manager Pat Howard and captain Michael Clarke, Australian businessman Don Argus "will attend Friday's board meeting to give his impressions on the state of the game two years after he delivered the Australian Team Performance Review," according to Peter Lalor of THE AUSTRALIAN. The Argus report "recommended radical changes to management structures, coaching and priorities in a bid to turn around an alarming decline in performances." Mickey Arthur, who was appointed coach after the review and then sacked in June on the eve of the Ashes series in England, said on the radio Wednesday that he believed heads "will roll if Australia loses the return series against England this summer." Arthur: "If they lose this Test series there is going to be a lot of questions asked. I think James Sutherland, I think Pat Howard, I think Michael Clarke ... I think some serious heads could roll if Australia don't win this Test series" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/24). In Brisbane, Malcom Conn wrote former Australia cricket captain Ricky Ponting has intensified the pressure on Cricket Australia, claiming that "he was angry when attempts to try and keep the team No. 1 were often ignored." After the launch of his candid autobiography "At the Close of Play" by former PM John Howard in Sydney Wednesday, Ponting said, "It made me angry at the time. I think some of the stuff we’re seeing now might have been half avoidable and I’m pretty sure Buck (former coach John Buchanan) would be saying the same thing about where we find Australian cricket now." The former captain's revelations came as Arthur claimed Sutherland, Howard and Clarke "would be under pressure if Australia lost a fourth successive Ashes series" (COURIER-MAIL, 10/24).
