Was Mickey Arthur a scapegoat or had he lost the respect of players?

Reaction in Australia was surprise and frustration with the Cricket Australia board rather than anger at departing coach

The sacked Australia coach Mickey Arthur faces the media in Bristol on Monday. Photograph: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images

Many words came to mind when the news broke that Mickey Arthur had been sacked. The very last of them were the exact ones with which ABC chose to begin its evening news programme. Cricket Australia, viewers were told, had delivered "a potential masterstroke" which had left "England suddenly concerned" ahead of the Ashes. If the team are looking for a new spinner, they could do worse than scout in the ABC newsrooms. The sound of English sniggering obviously had not made it to Australia in time for the 9pm bulletin.

The news that Darren Lehmann had been appointed was all that stopped Australia's winter in England from turning into tour de farce in the eyes of the public and press. "Everything that can go wrong is going wrong, isn't it?" said Allan Border, rousted up to talk on Fox news before Arthur's replacement had been named. Border spluttered his way through his interview, stifling a few throaty chuckles as he went. "Well, I'm, ahh, very shocked and surprised. Moving into that Ashes series, two weeks away, this has caught everyone by surprise."

Everyone maybe except the former fast bowler Geoff Lawson. "It doesn't come as a surprise given the India homework affair and the Champions Trophy," Lawson said on ABC. Lehmann is a popular pick among former players, because they believe he embodies the old ideals of Australian cricket. Border thought Lehmann was the best man for the job, partly because he was already in England but also because he is "an old, hard head" who might be "just what this team needs".

Lawson said that "it seems Arthur had lost the respect of the players. In another sport he would have got sacked a long time ago." That would have been difficult, given that he has been in the job for only 18 months. Arthur was appointed in November 2011 off the back of the Argus review, which had been commissioned to figure out why Australia lost the last Ashes series and what they would have to do to win the next one.

"And what the hell was the point of that?" asked Ian Chappell. "They were rubbish ideas. It was pure window dressing." Well, CA bought into it. The key recommendation was that there should be "a general manager responsible for the team, coaching, selection, the Centre of Excellence and who will work with state cricket performance and talent managers."

CA chose Arthur. However, it had such little conviction in its own plan and the man they picked to implement it that it junked the entire project just before it was about to find out whether or not it had worked. Instead it has taken a leaf from Shane Warne's "blueprint for Australian cricket", which he published, to some derision, back in January. Lehmann, Warne reckoned, should be assistant coach because "Boof understands the game as good as anyone and has a great outlook on the game, he's a good balance of old school and what the needs are of the current day player."

James Sutherland, the chief executive of CA, knocked Warne back at the time, saying that he had "every confidence" in what his management team was doing. Not many seem to have every confidence in Sutherland. He does have an unfortunate predilection for talking PowerPoint nonsense, with all his waffle about 'cricketainment'. Many seem to feel that Arthur, a popular man, has been made to carry the can. Certainly the Australian press pack were a lot less forgiving than the ABC scriptwriters. "Arthur became the scapegoat," wrote Greg Baum in The Australian. "He is the fall guy for the whole mess," added Chris Barrett on WAToday.

Some say Sutherland is bullet-proof, and perhaps he is. But then this is a man who has just overseen negotiations that led to a record-breaking TV rights deal that will earn CA $500m in the next five years. And the ECB knows a thing or two about how a TV rights deal can trump all manner of other slip-ups.

As Border put it, "We will have to wait and see what happens." He was worried that some of the players will "feel really upset about what has happened to Mickey Arthur" even if "others will feel quite comfortable."

Michael Clarke was quick to stress that it was not the players who had pushed this through.

The idea that Lehmann, good coach as he may be, can fix in three weeks what Arthur could not mend in 18 months is fanciful in the extreme. A masterstroke it is not. A bloody muddle it just may be.