Failure to quickly take command in critical moments behind Australia Test slide: Tim Nielsen

Australia's coach Tim Nielsen has said that Australian Test players are too slow to identify and take command of the crucial moments in matches.

Nielsen said a major reason for the team's slide from cricket supremacy to mediocrity was quite simply an inability to recognise or grasp opportunities when they presented themselves.

"We talk about it all the time and we try to do it as a batting group and a bowling group, identify the critical periods and then do our best to win them," Nielsen said.

"You can talk about these things as much as you like, people can come in and help, people can make comment and do what they want to do, but in the end it's up to us," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted him, as saying.

"They have to learn from their experiences, they have to be better at taking the things they've seen and learned and put them into their game so they are better for it, and we have to make sure we're doing those things as fast as we can," Nielsen said.

"That's where the pressure is at the moment, because the scoreboard's saying we're not doing it fast enough, the public perception is we're not doing it fast enough, and we need to make sure we've got faith in the way we're going about things," he added.

Nielsen also said that players, both senior and junior, had to take responsibility for not standing up when it mattered.

"We keep staying in the contest for as long as we possibly can, and I reckon we're probably an hour away in all those losses from being on the other side of it," he said.