In the middle of 2009 Australia was the No.1-ranked nation in Test cricket. Following its seemingly inevitable defeat in this Ashes series, Australia will begin 2011 ranked an abject fifth.

Despite plummeting so far so fast, little has changed in the personnel or mindset of the Australian set-up and Cricket Australia remains with its head buried firmly in the sand. As recently as the tea break in today's play, CA chief James Sutherland refused to concede his side was in transition until after its second innings. During a festive period in which we are implored to drive responsibility via every medium, Cricket Australia's leaders should be prosecuted for falling asleep at the wheel.

The individuals who have overseen the decline in Australia's fortunes, captain Ricky Ponting, coach Tim Nielsen, chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch and chief executive James Sutherland should now be held to account.

Ponting's miserable Test - with England at 5/444 in its first innings, and leading by 346 runs - got even worse tonight when he was hit with a $5400 fine for remonstrating with umpires Aleem Dar and Tony Hill after an unsuccessful challenge for caught behind against Kevin Pietersen.

This Australian side has been outbatted, outbowled, outfielded, outthought and outprepared by an England side that is only just beginning to realise its potential.

So what needs to change?

Three Ashes defeats is enough for any captain. Ponting will surely jump before he is pushed.

Ponting's tactical narrow-mindedness has been criticised for some time. Is it not the responsibility of the coach to craft strategies to deny the reactive captain the opportunity of setting fields for bad balls? If not, the coach becomes complicit or even an architect of such persistently thoughtless cricket. Nielsen is therefore as culpable for Australia's on-field amateurism and should also go.

Selection has been flawed for longer than the eighteen months it has taken Australia to slide down the rankings. The side of champions showed fatigue as far back as 2005. By the time the fodder of the Windies and Pakistan were served up last summer only Ponting and Michael Clarke remained yet the line-up still had an elderly feel. This was the opportunity to blood youth - not Marcus North. Andrew Hilditch should have been relieved of his laughably part-time duties some time ago.

By failing to either acknowledge the bigger picture, or attempting to arrest it other than by tinkering with the National Selection Panel, James Sutherland should be required to justify his retention as the head of cricket in Australia. The buck has to stop somewhere.

If the situation seems bleak it needs not be. It is always darkest before the dawn and Australia has already proven it can rebuild successfully.

The Simpson-Border unit of the mid-80s should now provide the template for how Australia needs to rebuild in 2011 and beyond. For that to occur, the executives, the coach and the captain all need to align behind a vision and for that vision to be communicated clearly throughout the cricketing community.

Such a plan will take time and the on-field situation may get worse before it gets better but grasping the nettle now in preparation for a new era will prove far less painful in the long run than the terminal decline the side is currently facing.