Mickey Arthur has been sacked as coach while captain Michael Clarke has quit as a selector in a desperate shake-up of Australia’s cricket hierarchy.
Darren Lehmann will replace Arthur as coach after the South African was dramatically axed 16 days before the Ashes opener.
Clarke has stepped down as a selector with the revamped structure to be outlined at a media conference in Bristol from 2100 AEST Monday.
Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland and high performance manager Pat Howard sacked Arthur in Bristol on Sunday night – he still had 20 months to run on his contract.
Sutherland and Howard will, at the media conference, present Lehmann as the new coach, with the Queensland mentor conveniently in England as a coach with Australia A.
Arthur, 45, became Australian cricket’s first foreign coach in November 2011.
But his fate as coach was effectively sealed when batsman David Warner punched his English counterpart Joe Root at a Birmingham bar a fortnight ago.
The Warner incident was the tipping point for Sutherland and the CA board, who were already edgy at Arthur’s perceived soft stance on player discipline.
The board’s anxiousness followed the 4-0 Test series loss in India last May which featured the axing of four players, including vice-captain Shane Watson, for discipline breaches.
The four were suspended for failing to complete a homework-styled exercise, with Arthur saying it was the latest in a string of smaller discipline problems.
At the time, Sutherland questioned how the situation had got to the stage where such drastic action was needed.
And Sutherland was likely asking the same question when, a fortnight ago, Warner punched Root at a Birmingham bar following England’s 48-run Champions Trophy win against Australia.
Warner was suspended until the first Test, starting July 10 at Trent Bridge, by CA’s code of behaviour commissioner, Justice Gordon Lewis.
But Arthur again raised eyebrows by suggesting the Australian tourists had been “outsmarted” in the Warner incident.
“That’s part and parcel of touring England,” Arthur told the BBC.
“You have to be very street smart and on your game. If you’re not, the media and the ECB (English Cricket Board) will have a field day with you.”
Arthur, who coached Australia in 19 Tests for 10 wins, six losses and three draws, had been contracted until the end of the 2015 World Cup.
But with Lehmann’s coaching continuing to earn rave reviews, the board approved a swift change to the title-winning Queensland coach.