Apparently Australian cricket selectors have shorter memories than the pet goldfish I flushed down the toilet as a kid.

Adam Gilchrist being rested from the Chappell-Hadlee trophy decider at Bellerive Oval on Thursday?

Give me a break.

Think back to the last time we played the Kiwis in this series in the Shaky Isles in February, when our selectors opted to rest skipper Ricky Ponting and Gilchrist from the series.

At the time, this column accused Australia of arrogance and declared we would only have ourselves to blame should we lose.

We lost all right – 3-0.

Granted, the bowlers were the major culprits in that series, when they somehow failed to defend huge totals of 336 and 346 in the second and third matches.

But with Michael Hussey captaining his country for the first time, I’m sure he would have killed for an old head like Gilly to be around to offer some advice, or at least encouragement.

I would be extremely surprised if then Kiwi skipper Stephen Fleming didn’t use the fact that Punter and Gilly were putting their feet up back home as major motivation in the dressing room before that series.

I can understand giving everyone’s favourite wingnut a rest if Australia had been trawling through an exhaustive schedule in recent times.

But they haven’t.

A quick glance at the archives shows that Australia has played a total of 138.3 overs worth of cricket in the past four weeks.

The second and final Test match against Sri Lanka finished on November 20.

Since then, we have played a Twenty20 match against New Zealand on December 11, the Chappell-Hadlee opener last Friday and a washed-out second match where just six overs were possible on Sunday. Please.

If we had won the second match and therefore regained the trophy, by all means rest whoever you want.

Spare a thought for those Tasmanians who snapped up tickets to Thursday’s match, salivating in anticipation after watching Gilchrist smash a brilliant 51 off 29 balls in the first game at Adelaide Oval.

They’ve been short-changed.

“I don’t think we’re being arrogant. We’ve spoken regularly about trying to look after the workload of our senior players,” was Aussie coach Tim Nielsen’s defence of the decision yesterday.

Come on. If I had worked as little as our cricketers have in the past month, I wouldn’t be writing this column.

Some may argue that we have four tough Tests against India and the lengthy Commonwealth Bank Series to contend with in the near future.

But these blokes are paid great money to get out there and play cricket.