It's been an odd, endless summer for Australian cricket.

Officially it began on a cold November afternoon at the MCG, with a humiliating debacle against Sri Lanka, though it could be argued it began a month earlier, on tour in India, for a two-Test series of the basest intentions.

The international summer technically ended in the warmth of Perth on February 6, after England had been dismissed in a disappointingly one-sided ODI series. The reality, however, is that the summer will continue into March, or possibly April if Australia makes it to the final of this year's World Cup.

In-between, it will have been the worst of times and still possibly the best of times.

To pick just one example: when the summer began which of these three possibilities would have appeared the least fanciful? The greatest spinner in history making a comeback at 41 to help his beleaguered nation overcome their fiercest enemy? A retired sportsman with a dubious public image fronting an eponymous primetime show on network television? Or a portly smoker with tinted plugs and luminous teeth being besieged in his suburban Melbourne home after embarking on an affair with a high-profile English supermodel?

It's been that kind of summer.

Normally around this time a legend is being chaired off their home ground for the final time in respect of the service they have given their country. This summer the legends are all already in chairs, commentating, playing poker, fishing or watching the Victorian Bushrangers from the sheds of the MCG after another hundred.

Shane Watson aside, Australia will not have its best two limited-overs batsmen for the world cup due to selectoral intransigence with Brad Hodge and extreme caution over the fitness of Mike Hussey.

The reviews into cricketing performance and administration cannot come quickly enough.

It has been a chastening summer for Australian cricket in every respect. We learned the best XI is no longer in the elite of Test cricket. We learned the fitness or Australian players - particularly its bowlers - is insufficient to withstand the rigors of the current ludicrous schedule. We learned that T20 might make our young players wealthy but it butchers their techniques. We also learned that Andrew Hilditch did a good job.

What we learned from the domestic season is hard to tell, as it's unclear at what stage any of the competitions are actually at. I look forward to the announcement in two-years time that as the back-to-back Ashes schedule is released, the domestic calendar is reduced to a series of city-based T20 clashes comprised solely of overseas players, scheduled for Indian TV. With the one-hand-one-bounce rule.

Despite an Ashes defeat, Australia is still in good shape to take home a fourth-consecutive World Cup, which should make 2011 (let's forget 2010) a memorable vintage.

In Shane Watson, Australia has the single most dangerous player in the competition. Around him, the selectors have taken a bold approach to maximise the explosive potential in the team, rather than the relentless efficiency it once hand.

With the batting, the strategy is now clearly to allow the top order time to build big innings and stack the middle and lower order with floating hitters - a la Steve Smith, Mitchell Johnson and Cameron White - to bludgeon the total above 300 in the final 15 or so overs. If Ricky Ponting finds some kind of form during the tournament and Watson remains anywhere near his current level, this could prove a masterly approach and considerably negate the torpid middle-overs, at least 20 of which will be bowled by spinners in sub-continental conditions.

The bowling is altogether more risky, but I like the thinking. Australia no longer has a battery of reliable, economical, pace bowlers. The McGraths, Bichels, Reiffels are no longer there to call on for their miserly one-fors and two-fors. Similarly, there is no matchwinning spinner.

The solution is to trust the maxim that nothing slows down a run-rate like a wicket. By including Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee and Shaun Tait, Australia leaves itself open to some expensive spells but also 30 overs of raw wicket-taking opportunity. Backed up by the methodical Watson (and possibly also John Hastings) as well as the darts of David Hussey, Australia has made a Faustian pact that economy rate is a willing sacrifice for regular wickets.

Reassuringly for cricket fans used to interminable competitions, the 2011 World Cup will make the recent seven-game ODI series feel like a backyard knockabout.

Australia faces Zimbabwe in its first match on February 21, followed by five more group games against Canada, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The competition is rigged, sorry, structured, to allow the major test-playing nations the maximum opportunity to progress to the quarter-finals yet still make it worthwhile for the minnows to bother turning up.

If all goes according to plan - i.e. not losing more than once in games against New Zealand, Pakistan or Sri Lanka - Australia will face the West Indies or Bangladesh on March 23. The inevitable semi final would then be on March 29 and the final April 2. Imagine how many tins of baked beans Warnie would need to get through that!

As Australia showed this summer, despite the game not being in the rudest health, there are sufficient one-day performers to paper over the cracks. England proved they remain pitiful at the 50-over game, despite excelling at Test and T20. Pakistan, New Zealand and West Indies are all in various states of disarray, which leaves India, Sri Lanka and South Africa as the only realistic title challengers.

Narrowed down to those odds, with a bit of momentum and a slice of luck, this might turn out to be a reasonable (if endless) summer after all.