Cricket Australia (CA) will launch 'a comprehensive review' of Australia's disastrous performance at the ICC World Twenty20 championship in England after the Aussies bowed out in humiliating fashion on Tuesday morning (AEST).
The Australians went out in straight sets after losing both preliminary matches against the West Indies and Sri Lanka and now find themselves in limbo with their first tour match in the upcoming Ashes series not due to start until June 24.
While Australia is the undoubted king of both Test match and 50-over cricket, it is struggling to come to terms with the new form of the game and has lost its past five Twenty20 matches and is still searching for its first world title in the shortest form of the game.
Australia's shock exit from the tournament has been greeted with jubilation from rival nations tired of the Aussies' domination of world cricket over the past 15 years, with England's biggest selling tabloid newspaper The Sun greeting the news with the headline of 'See You Sheilas'.
But it has not gone down well at the game's headquarters in Australia with Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland promising to get to the bottom of it on Tuesday.
CA's review is expected to focus on areas such as preparation, scheduling of warm-up matches and especially team selection given Australia chose to ignore players with the most experience and success playing the latest form of the game, such as Victoria's Brad Hodge, in favour of established Test players.
"Over the next few days we will have a real good hard look at what might have gone wrong in this Twenty20 championship," Sutherland said on Tuesday.
"Obviously it's disappointing for us to go out in straight sets and we will want to understand exactly why that is."
Sutherland denied the exit had hurt Australia's on-field reputation but said the team had to perform better when the next ICC World Twenty20 arrives.
"The next World Twenty20 is in the West Indies in April/May next year and that is obviously something we can set our sights on and all the more reason for us to have a comprehensive review of the performances (in England) and the reason why," he said.
The team's early exit also raises the question of just how it will spend the next two weeks - when it was supposed to be involved in the ICC World Twenty20 - ahead of its first tour game on the Ashes tour.
The entire Ashes touring party is not due to assemble in England until next week but Sutherland said on Tuesday that could now be put forward while Cricket Australia would also try organising an additional lead-in game for the team over the next fortnight.
"Obviously it's very disappointing to lose both games and be out of the tournament at this early stage," Sutherland said.
"There is a silver lining there and that means the players will have a greater time of preparation with the red balls leading into the Ashes series but I don't think that is too much of a silver lining now, straight after that result."
The early exit will force a rethink of Australia's preparations for the Ashes' series.
"We are looking into various plans as to how we can get the other members of the Ashes' squad (that weren't involved in the Twenty20 matches) over to England sooner and we are going to be based at Leicester for the period leading into the tour matches and we will look at what sort of practice we now have and whether that involves matches or not," Sutherland said.
"They are all things that are on the drawing board and things we are discussing with the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) at the moment."