Saturday 6 April 2013

A disastrous tour to India

         
  The actual situation was bizarre enough, with four players dropped for failing to complete a simple post-match assignment, but it was what it revealed that really got people's attention: Something was rotten in the state of Down Under.Coach Mickey Arthur now has two months to work some magic, assuming he stays in the job, before the ICC Champions Trophy in England. There, his ODI side will need to do what the T20 lot did last year in Sri Lanka, and hand the critics a slice of humble pie. The Aussies became an international cricketing joke, even more than they were already after losing the first two Tests. Watson's return from Oz only to be handed the captaincy for the fourth Test left pundits even more baffled. From sanctioned to skipper in the space of two weeks? Impressive.Shane Warne recommended everyone have a beer and discuss the issue in an old school manner (he recommended this for the KP saga too, so one imagines the pub is his think tank). Former England skipper Michael Vaughan had huge fun taking the mickey (Arthur) out of the Aussies on Twitter, while Shane Watson shrugged his shoulders and jetted back to Oz for the birth of his baby.During all this, the frustration felt by senior players was plain to see. Michael Clarke was visibly enraged during the third Test when Shikhar Dhawan went on his 187-run rampage, while tempers flared easily in the fourth match as David Warner had to be physically restrained while confronting MS Dhoni about his running on the pitch.

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