Better credentialled people than me will have their say about where to next for the Australian Test team, although to this very amateur observer (at least when it comes to cricket) wholesale changes need to be made before the trip to Sri Lanka later this year.

Come August, Phil Hughes, Steve Smith, Michael Beer, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitch Johnson, Michael Clarke and perhaps even Ricky Ponting might find themselves doing what the rest of us are doing at that time of the year - watching the football.

Of more importance than the make-up of the next Test team is what steps Cricket Australia will take to ensure there is no repeat of the absolute debacle and let it also be said, national disgrace, that this summer's series has become.

CA needs to decide what the priority is for the Test team. Is it to win the series in Sri Lanka? Or has the time come for CA to follow the well-worn path of rebuilding football teams of various codes around the world and 'play the kids'? Short-term pain for long-term gain.

Perhaps the head honchos of Australian cricket need to identify a Test series down the track, perhaps the return Ashes series in England 2013 or perhaps more likely, the series in Australia a year or two after that is when Australia will look to peak again.

Of course, the complication is that any long-term planning for the Australian Test team has to be juggled with the competing requirements of 50-over and Twenty-20 cricket.

Ian Healy made the point on TV on Friday that the Australians would like to get back on the bike and play another Test series as soon as possible. Yet with the World Cup now on the immediate horizon, many Australian players won't see a red ball again until the Sri Lanka series. Michael Clarke is one who could do with a sustained spell of four-day cricket. But despite his 'retirement' from the shortest form of the game, he won't get it any time this summer.

The selection panel needs a serious tweak. The poor planning and puzzling selection choices have been well documented elsewhere. Having Greg Chappell as a full-time selector is a welcome first step in theory, although Chappell is a bit like Carlton's Stephen Kernahan - his body of work in retirement doesn't quite match that of his playing days. But selection chairman Andrew Hilditch needs to go, while the other selectors and the coaching staff need to be looked at. A selection policy that places a premium on ability, form and potential, at the expense of team chemistry also deserves merit. Cricket, at its core, is an individual sport, so just because a player or two isn't on the captain's Christmas card list, it shouldn't rule them out of consideration for selection.

Coach Tim Nielsen presided over three innings defeats shortly after receiving a three-year contract extension. CA needs to have chat to the Essendon Football Club about how to extricate itself from that particular situation. And might also want to explain how there wasn't a place for David Saker, so pivotal to England's bowling success, somewhere in the national coaching structure.

Another area where CA may want to borrow from the football codes is scouting. If cricket was football, then every ball bowled, every run scored and every field set by England in Test cricket over the last two years would have been charted. Andrew Strauss captained superbly and tactically, was always a step ahead of Ponting and then Clarke.

Cricket is a sport of swings and roundabouts. Australia will rebound and win the Ashes again. But not before a great deal of introspection and after a few changes are made.