Batsmen in the mould of, or, as talented as Michael Clarke or the retired Ricky Ponting, may never be seen in Australia again if the "holes in the production line" are not addressed by the country's cricket administrators, says former great Ian Chappell.
"We are not addressing the fact that there are holes in the production line," Chappell said.
"If you think about it, Ponting, (Michael) Hussey and Clarke, you would have to say are the last of that sort of generation who learnt how to survive those tough periods."
Chappell questioned Australia's methods of producing talented batsmen.
"For instance, I have seen the next lot of batsmen at the Under-19 level World Cup and I have not seen any change in what's happening.
"So I've got to ask the question, if our methods of producing batsmen don't seem to be working, and in my opinion they are not, why aren't we trying to do some other things?" Chappell was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
He said that the "core problem" facing Australian cricket at the moment needed to be fixed first.
"I don't hear these things being talked about and it's just a matter of will we change the coach, will we bring in a new high-performance (manager), those things are not going to make one bit of a difference. Fix up the core problem and then we might start to get somewhere.
"The problem with that being, if we fix up the core problem tomorrow, you are talking about another generation before you really start to reap the benefits. So there are some major problems that I see in Australian cricket and I don't think they are being addressed.
