Seven days ago Ricky Ponting was adjudged the best player available to lead Australia in the one-day arena, now he is not even in the best 13 players in the country. Crazy? Not by the standards of the NSP.
Ponting is without a doubt Australia's greatest one-day player, but it appears the end has come quickly for the 37-year-old, who had endured a run of outs in the Tri-Series against India and Sri Lanka.
It may well be time to move on, but the unceremonious manner which his departure was announced, especially in the context of the same NSP's determination to let him hang around at Test level, was surprising.
After 374 games with an accumulation of over 13,000 runs at 42.03 with a strike rate of 80.39, Ponting could have asked to deserve better, but despite the mixed messages of the previous week, when he was elevated to the captaincy in Michael Clarke's absence, he knew that he was only a lean run away from the abyss.
The absurdity of the situation is not in the decision to send him on his way after an amazing career which included 30 hundreds, 82 fifties, three World Cup victories and two as captain, was how it was handled in contrast to the Brad Haddin situation.
In the context of Ponting's exit out the door, there is a sense of irony that NSP chairman John Inverarity has proven you are never too old to learn, by discovering a new word in his vocabulary 'dropped'.
Three weeks ago, Inverarity refused to classify Brad Haddin as dropped, instead insisting he had been rested. After weeks of confusion and clarification, it is only in the past couple of days that the keeper has been told that he was actually left out of the teams in preference for Matthew Wade for form rather than fatigue.
A few of his team-mates felt sorry for him, but that's not half as bad as they will feel when they see the Ponting-sized gap left in the dressing room.
Haddin may have felt hard done by, but at least he was let down gently, which is more than can be said for the best one-day captain Australia has ever had.
The timing of the decision is slightly puzzling. What harm would have been done by letting Ponting go on to the end of the series and have a national one-day farewell? What harm would have been done by announcing that Friday's clash against Sri Lanka in his home state of Hobart would be his farewell?
It is conceivable that the self-made confusion over the Haddin situation forced Inverarity and his cohorts to act more clinically in this instance. There is no longer and black and white in selection, nor is there apparently room for sentiment.
That's an approach that is hard to disagree with, but it is unfortunate that Ponting has become its first victim.