ustralia's troubled tour of India has been further plunged into disarray after news has emerged that James Pattinson, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson have been dumped from the 3rd Test for breaking team orders.
It has been reported that all the four players in question had failed to answer a team questionnaire about how to improve team performance following the defeat in the second Test in Hyderabad. A fed up Mickey Arthur is reported to have said that he was sick about the attitude shown by the players and responded with the extreme decision of leaving them out of the forthcoming Test match in Mohali which starts on the 14th of March. India hold a 2-0 advantage in the four Test series and Australia needs to win the final two matches if they are to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Following the Test loss at Hyderabad, all the players were asked to jot down three points about what aspects of the game they bring into the team. They were given five days to complete the task and were given the the options of either giving it in person or through e-mail. The above four players are said to have failed to comply with the assignment in the given time.
Coach Mickey Arthur has said that the move was to maintain the standards of culture in the team. "We pride ourselves on attitude. We have given the players a huge amount of latitude to get the culture and attitude right. We believe that those behaviors are not consistent with what we want to do with this team, how we want to take this team to be the best in the world. I believe those four players unfortunately did not meet my requirements so those four players are not available for selection for this Test match."
The axing of James Pattinson is certainly a massive blow for the Australians as the speedster was one of the few saving graces of the tour so far. He has so far snaffled 8 wickets from 2 Tests which includes a 5-wicket haul in the first Test at Chennai. Shane Watson has not had a great time with the bat and was under pressure to deliver, having decided that he would not bowl during the tour. Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja have just been fringe members of the squad so far but there was clamour amongst the past Australian players that the duo must be a part of the team plans for the 3rd Test in Mohali.
Arthur however said that the quartet would certainly be considered for the fourth and final Test to be played in Delhi. "I asked the players at the end of the game to give me an individual presentation. I wanted three points from each of them as to how we were going to get back over the next couple of games, how we we're going to get ourselves back into the series," Arthur said.
"We have given these guys absolute clarity, we have given this team a huge amount of time to buy in with what we want to do for the Australian cricket team, we have given a vision to these guys that is spelt out. Although this incident might seem very small in isolation, this is a line in the sand moment for us as a unit in our quest to become the best in the world."
"This has been the toughest decision that myself, manager Gavin Dovey and captain Michael Clarke have ever had to make. It's a tough, tough decision, but the ramifications for that within our team structure and the message that it sends to all involved in Australian cricket is that we are pretty serious about where we want to take this team."
"For me, it's almost the Andy Flower decision. AF and Andrew Strauss and what they did with Kevin Pietersen... it's buy-in time, you buy-in to what we do because if you don't we're not going to achieve what we want as a team and in 24 months or however long we have, there is going to be a different set of people saying exactly the same thing and the young players haven't learned one iota from us."
The tourists have now been reduced to a 13 member squad with Matthew Wade struggling to be fit in time for the Mohali game. Brad Haddin has already been summoned to join the squad ahead of the game as a cover for the injured keeper
Courtesy : cricbuzz
