An ever-dwindling battery of pace bowlers is being spun through the selectors' revolving door as Australia contemplate how to cobble together an attack for next month's New Zealand tour.
With the world No 1 ranking up for grabs, Australia will look to its quicks but they are fully occupied with the high-rotation selection policy. Josh Hazlewood has been spelled for the duration of the Australian summer to ensure he is fit for New Zealand.
James Pattinson is out with shin soreness and Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins are on the long-term injury list. 
Lucky them, given the rolled plasticine pitches being served up in the ODI series.
Peter Siddle has also been spared bowling on the featherbeds but his absence is down to injury rather than rotation.
Siddle will resume bowling today after almost four weeks on the sidelines with an ankle injury.
Mitchell Marsh was rotated out of the second ODI in Brisbane because Cricket Australia is uncomfortable with its quicks playing too soon after flying from Perth to the eastern seaboard.
Rotation begat resting which begat "informed player management" during former head selector John Inverarity's tenure.
Yet another term for resting fast bowlers emerged on the weekend: "sensible" player management.
"We regard it as sensible management of the player," Darren Lehmann said in announcing -Hazlewood would be rested ahead of the New Zealand tour.
"It is an approach that we have adopted successfully in Australian cricket over a significant period of time, especially in the one-day -format." Hazlewood and Pattinson will lead the attack in New Zealand so the selectors are taking an ultra-cautious approach with their quicks. The stakes in New Zealand could not be higher: a series win will vault Australia to the top of the ICC Test rankings.
CA announced on the weekend that Pattinson would not be available for the Renegades when they play the Strikers tonight.
Pattinson has reported soreness in his left shin since the New Year's Test in Sydney.
On a last man out first man in basis, Siddle is next in line to come into the side in New Zealand.
He aims to prove his fitness in Victoria's Shield game against Tasmania on   February 3.
Joel Paris is the latest to be rested after being replaced in the attack by Mitchell Marsh yesterday.
Queenslander Billy Stanlake is another who has been rested from Shield matches this summer - to no avail. He has broken down with back stress fractures and appears unlikely to play again this season.
The news was reported in some quarters as a blow for the Strikers, but it was a bigger blow for the -nation, given Stanlake's immense potential. There is little succour to be found in the toiling of Australia's second string attack in the ODI series.
Kane Richardson (1-48 from 10 overs) showed a spark in finding Rohit Sharma's outside edge early in India's innings at the MCG yesterday.
Richardson bowls at a good clip but is something of a short-forms specialist and a first-class average of 38 and strike rate of 72 does not constitute a case for Test selection.
In taking a career best 4-58 yesterday, John Hastings seems to have gained a yard to push the speed gun past 140km/h so at least meet that KPI set by the selectors.
Scott Boland has been talked up as a Test prospect but he has received some harsh punishment from Virat Kohli and company.
Boland now has 1-201 from his three ODIs and is going at 6.7 runs an over. In the Victorian's defence, that is largely thanks to the dead pitches being prepared for the ODIs this summer.
Allrounder James Faulkner (1-63) showed glimpses of his best form in drying up Kohli for parts of the middle overs before receiving the MS Dhoni treatment at the death.
Before being knocked off his lines by Dhoni, Faulkner was one of the very few to trouble Kohli, whose 117 (117 balls, seven fours and two sixes) was the centrepiece of India's 6-295 after being asked to bat first by Steve Smith.
Faulkner even beat the bat on occasions and went up for a very good lbw shout when one of his trademark back-of-the-hand leg-breaks beat Ajinkya Rahane's bat.
Ian Chappell has warned against a diet of pitches so full of runs that the public will tire of gluttonous batting displays.
"Part of any sport's attraction is the contest," Chappell wrote in his column for News Corporation papers yesterday."If the contest becomes a secondary consideration to the spectator's lust for entertainment or blood â€¦ then it ceases to be a game."Renegades' tough task P29