Shaun Marsh and Tim Paine's shock Ashes selections weren't in line with Steve Smith's thinking and even surprised the Australian captain, according to former Test opener Ed Cowan.
Cowan, 35, was the leading run-scorer in last season's Sheffield Shield but, based on a youth policy, was controversially left out of the NSW team for the first three rounds before the Ashes.
Smith admitted he had played a key role in the decision to replace the 15-Test veteran with Daniel Hughes, arguing the latter had international potential.
But on the eve of the Ashes, Cowan revealed the selections of 34-year-old Marsh and 32-year-old Paine for Australia contradicted Smith's views for the national team.
"He has had some open and honest conversations with me," Cowan said.
"I think he was surprised - without revealing confidential conversations between us - I think he certainly had a view that that's the way the board had indicated selections were going to go.
"And I think the selection panel, as directed by Pat Howard, has turned that on it's head."
Cowan will come back into NSW's side for this weekend's Shield clash with Victoria, after any faint hopes of an Ashes comeback had ended with the state demotion.
But he said he'd moved on from the decision to overlook him, based largely on age, before Marsh was then picked by national selectors.
"To a degree at the time, once we got to the bottom of why it happened, I was comfortable with that," Cowan said.
"The only sour element comes from the fact that, three weeks ago, I was evidently too old and then someone I played youth cricket with gets picked in the Test team.
"The policy of the young guys playing, I've got no problem with, as long as it's a selection policy that sticks."
Cowan last played Test cricket in 2013, but had scored 2283 runs at 51.89 in the past three domestic summers.
And while he says he is unfazed by his future Test hopes, he suggested domestic players had been thrown into a state of confusion by the moves.
"The bottom line here is every player in the system wants it to be at its absolute maximum capacity," he said.
"We love the Australian cricket team. We want it to win and we are wishing those guys all the very best.
"But from a systemic point of view, we just want a little more consistency and clarity around selection."
