Six summers ago, Australia were sailing towards a clean sweep of England and went on to equal their world record of 16 consecutive Test wins.

Shane Warne was weaving his magic on the field and barely tolerating head coach John Buchanan off it.

Fast forward to 2012/13 and four players including vice-captain Shane Watson have been suspended for Thursday’s third Test against India because they didn’t complete a homework assignment.

It’s a scenario one can easily imagine happening in 2006/07 involving Warne and Buchanan — without a suspension.

Test quick James Pattinson and squad members Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson have also been stood down this week.

“It was part forgetting and at this level you can’t forget,” Pattinson said on Tuesday.

Pattinson says with an Ashes tour looming in July, standards have to be put in place to set Michael Clarke’s team on a course for success against England.

The 22-year-old Pattinson says critics of the suspensions are wide of the mark.

“A lot of the players that are saying that were great players,” Pattinson said on Tuesday.

“They probably didn’t have to deal with this stuff because they were in a period of time when they were on top of the world really.

“We are not a group of great players like we’ve had in the past that can sometimes get away with it because they have performances on the board.”

Australia trail two-nil in their four-Test series and their pace attack will be weakened by the loss of Pattinson.

“If we let it go, then we’ll keep being mediocre like we’ve been,” Pattinson said.

“We are a young team that are not in that position (of 2006/07). We don’t have a Shane Warne in the team.

“We are all on even ground and hopefully we’ve got the talent that we can one day be a great team.

“We’ve got a huge period with the back-to-back Ashes that are going to be important.

“If we get these little niggling things out of the way now (it’ll) send a message that come the Ashes time we will be ready to go.”