Again, I make what is, in retrospect, the error of not coming out in public and making a strong statement about what really happened. I am so mad about how things got twisted, I don’t trust myself to stick to the script. What I should do is cool down, explain exactly how things happened, preferably side by side with Huss, and throw a bucket of cold water on the malicious email. Instead, I angrily brush it off and tell myself that if I say nothing, it will go away. As with the Kato episode, it doesn’t.
The innuendo leaves a sour taste to what was, at the time, a fantastic night. When we were at the SCG, it was all about Huss, and when we were on the boat, it was all about the team. But once the ugly and false email gets out into the press, it becomes all about how I have divided the players into factions. Because of the myths that have been built up around my falling-out with Andrew Symonds and what happened to Simon Katich, it’s added to the Michael Clarke rap sheet.
Of the relationships that had deteriorated since I had been captain, I did everything in my power to rebuild my friendship with Symmo, but he didn’t want it. I never had any bad blood with Kato, but, as I have explained, the public image around our relationship proved too big a barrier when his contract wasn’t renewed. The main relationship within the team that I did know I had to address was with Shane Watson. I heard that Watto did feel that we had somehow let Huss down by going on the boat without him, and this was one of the issues that would be mentioned two months later when things came to a head in India.
Watto and I had played together since we were both in under-19s representative teams. We went to the Australian Cricket Academy in the same intake, and were close mates there. I got on really well with him, and the way we related to each other never changed throughout our careers. I never disliked Watto as a person. He was such a nice guy, it was impossible to not like him. Whether we played with or against each other, we were always friendly. You can see pictures of us right through our careers, celebrating winning back the Ashes in 2013–14, winning the World Cup in 2015, and many other great victories, and none of that is faked. Person to person, we never had a bad moment.
Because we were the same age, the media built us up as competitors from early in our careers. There was never anything in that. I was a specialist batsman who bowled a little, whereas Watto was a genuine all-rounder, who bowled at up to 145 km/h early in his career, and was among the most destructive limited-overs batsmen Australia has ever produced. We were quite different kinds of players, with different roles in our teams, but I guess you can’t evade those comparisons and contrasts when you come up through the system together. It never produced any antagonism between us.
We broke into the Australian one-day international team around the same time, in 2002–03. I made my Test debut in 2004, Watto in 2005. The team we entered was quite factionalised, but as youngsters neither of us belonged to any senior-player group. We were both just happy to be there.
I spent a lot of time with Andrew Symonds and Shane Warne, and Watto was very close to Brett Lee. But I also hung out with the rest of the guys – anyone who would put up with me!
My closest friend turned out to be Shane Warne, and he was also tight with Watto, bringing him into his Rajasthan Royals IPL team for their successful first few years. Nothing that came between Watto and me had anything to do with team factions in those years.
Little misunderstandings can grow over time. I can only speak for myself, and I’m sure I had a lot of habits and ideas that would have irked Watto. Like nearly every Australian cricket follower, I desperately wanted him to fulfil his obvious potential. No batsman could dominate attacks like he could, and no bowler was as dangerous in conditions that suited him or as economical in tough times. He had the potential to be as phenomenal an all-rounder as Jacques Kallis.
Injuries interrupted his early career, and changed the way he had to prepare for cricket. When I became a senior player and then captain, I got an insight into how those injuries had affected Watto’s preparation. I thought that if we had a running session, we should all run together. But Watto, due to his history with injuries, would go off and do his own thing, often with his personal physio, Victor Popov. We would do a running session and he would do a bike session, which annoyed the support staff, who were trying to bring us all together. Maybe we should have had broad enough minds to accept that one size did not fit all players. But due to my own beliefs, I was hell-bent on the team sticking together and preparing as a unit, and the way Cricket Australia had structured the support staff was reinforcing this view. I wasn’t criticising him or whingeing about him. Other players would say, ‘Why isn’t Watto with us?’ I would defend him, but I assume it was one of those things in the atmosphere of the group, over the years, that wedged itself between Watto and the group.
We all thought he was a better player than his stats ultimately showed. I don’t place much store in statistics. Watto averaged 35.20 with the bat in his 59 Test matches, and 33.68 with the ball. Those are figures that compare pretty well with the likes of Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham, two great all-rounders, but Watto would no doubt feel that he could have averaged higher with the bat, and influenced more matches and series the way those great all-rounders did. As a selector for two years and as captain for four years, I was always in favour of picking him when he was fit to play as an all-rounder.
I happily own those decisions, and feel that he contributed enough to our team to warrant those selections. Nonetheless, I was regularly having to defend his selection to other players. He was invariably given a chance, whereas batsmen like Phil Hughes and Shaun Marsh were the first to be axed, and there were plenty of others who didn’t get a go at all. Selections, by their nature, cause resentment, because someone has to miss out. Watto, due to his class as a player, never seemed to be the one to miss out. And yet the way people interpreted his body language, he didn’t exude the joy you would expect from someone given so many chances.
I repeat that none of this was Watto’s fault. He was trying his best, and we are the way we are. He had a way of trudging around that was purely a result of his build and his appearance. The body language was a superficial thing that he didn’t intend at all, but others would get frustrated and interpret it as a sign that he didn’t care. This wasn’t true. He cared as much as anybody. You would have to care immensely, to go through the amount of rehab he endured to get on the park. But when someone would say, ‘Get him off the field if he doesn’t care,’ I would have to defend him again, and the rumblings among the team added to the atmosphere.
There’s no hiding from the fact that I wanted to be a strong captain and could rub people up the wrong way. I said straight up to the team, ‘If you’re not going to get on this train, get off.’ It was all about getting the team back to number one. If you weren’t on board, get out of the way. I was very driven by that. My greatest achievement was getting the team back to number one in South Africa, but I sacrificed relationships for it.
Is this what happened between me and Watto? I’m not sure. We didn’t have arguments and we didn’t thrash it out. But something would leak to the media, like the boat story, and it was turned into how I was not getting on with some teammates, and I was having a war with Watto.
A few weeks after the Melbourne Test match and the boat episode, we go to India for a four-Test series. Watto is my vice-captain. Our relationship is the same as it’s always been, which is to say, on the same footing as my relationship with 90 per cent of the players I’ve played with. We sit in the changing room and chat, we chat on the field, we practise and play together, we go out for team dinners and functions. On this tour, Phillip Hughes, Matthew Wade and Brad Haddin are the players who are also my close friends outside cricket, but that happens in any team, and I don’t think we are factionalised on the tour.
Although I’m aware of his feelings over the boat and Huss’s retirement, I don’t go into this tour thinking there is any bridge to build with Watto. The boat party just didn’t seem like a big issue. My focus
is on getting him on the field as an all-rounder, so that his talent can help us win games. I get worried before some matches that he’s going to break down – and then very frustrated if he does. That drives me nuts. But it would be the same with any player. You just want them to be at their best.
While we were winning matches during the 2012–13 Australian summer, these and other issues were swept under the carpet. That’s the nature of sport. When you start losing, however, it’s a different matter.
India pump us in the first two Test matches, in Chennai and Hyderabad. Watto doesn’t bowl, which increases the strain on our bowling unit, who are struggling against some determined Indian batting on unhelpful wickets. I want him to bowl, but he says he can’t risk injuring his calf again, and the selectors continue picking him as a specialist batsman. If he’s being picked as a specialist batsman, then that takes the bowling side out of the equation. He isn’t scoring as many runs as he would like – though he is not alone in that.
We are a dispirited and disappointed team after the Second Test, which we lose by an innings. I make a hundred in Chennai and 91 in Hyderabad, but my back is starting to play up, which I have to fight against if I want to keep up a happy and resolute face for our inexperienced team.
And we are outrageously inexperienced: Ed Cowan, Phil Hughes, Glenn Maxwell, James Pattinson, Matthew Wade, Moises Henriques, Nathan Lyon, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Xavier Doherty and David Warner – 12 out of a squad of 15 – are on their first tours of India as Test cricketers. A huge load rests on myself and Watto, as the captain and vice-captain of course, but also as the only regular members of the team with Test experience in India.
On the day the Hyderabad Test match finishes, I have lunch in the team hotel with Mickey Arthur, Gavin Dovey and John Inverarity. A number of issues come up: players wearing non-regulation uniforms, being late to meetings, leaving change rooms in an unacceptable state, and showing disrespect to people who are helping us. We are exasperated with the slipping standards, and believe there is a direct correlation between that and what is happening on the field.
As chairman of selectors, John raises some queries we will have to face for the Third Test in Mohali, among them Watto’s lack of runs. John has always been adamant about having Watto in every single team, yet I’m getting frustrated with him breaking down when bowling, or, as on this tour, refusing to be considered as a bowler. I’m not saying not to pick him. I am saying, ‘Pick him when he’s fit.’ The medical staff, who I am seeing every day, are asking, ‘Why do we make this mistake over and over again?’
Other players are also frustrated with him having run his own show fitness-wise. He has his reasons for this. When he feels that he isn’t getting what he needs from the team staff, he pays for his own separate treatment. But whatever the reasons, it creates a division within the team.
I organise a centre-wicket practice at Hyderabad on the notional fifth day of the match, and again it’s clear that some players are giving everything to the session while others are going through the motions.
Mickey, meanwhile, is trying his best to rally us. When the team arrives in Mohali for the Third Test, which we need to win to keep alive our hopes of retaining the Border–Gavaskar Trophy, Mickey tells everyone that he wants them to contribute ideas. We are being outplayed. He says, ‘I want to hear two positive things and two negative things about how we’re going from all of the team.’ It doesn’t matter if they tell him in person, by email, on a piece of paper, whatever. But over the next few days before the Test match, Mickey wants feedback, a request that would be common in any professional sporting team.
On the eve of the Mohali Test match, Mickey calls a meeting of the support staff, plus me, at the Marriott Hotel in Chandigarh where we are staying. He announces, ‘Four players still haven’t got back to me by the deadline. What are we going to do?’
I don’t know who the four players are, and I don’t know if anyone else in the room apart from Mickey does before the meeting. There is a lengthy discussion among the staff about general standards slipping. They say that there is no unity in the way the team is preparing for matches, and that guys are getting away with disciplinary infractions that should not be occurring at the highest level of sport. I don’t know if it is Mickey’s soft, relaxed approach, or my fanatical style of preparation, but whatever the cause, we are not getting the message through. Until now, I haven’t realised how frustrated the support staff have been. Meanwhile, we are getting flogged on the field and everyone is looking for answers. The meeting is the explosion of a volcano that has been bubbling for some time.
Finally, the team doctor Peter Brukner, who has worked with ultra-professional Australian Football League and English Premier League teams, says to Mickey, ‘You’ve got to take a stand. This rubbish has been going on long enough. They think you’re not tough enough, Mickey.’
It is open for everyone to share their opinion on a sanction. The most popular option is to rule those four players ineligible for selection in the Third Test. Mickey reveals who they are: Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitch Johnson. Usman and Mitch have not played in the first two Test matches, but due to our performances they are in the reckoning for the third.
There is almost unanimous support, from the staff, for a one-match ban. I am pissed off in general about losing, and the staff have convinced me that too many blokes in this team are acting like they couldn’t care less. The argument is not just to punish the four players, either. It’s to say to the other squad members, Good on you for making an effort. I say to Mickey, ‘Whatever you decide, I’ll support.’
The only one in the room against taking a firm stand against a one-match ban is Alex Kountouris, who thinks it’s too harsh a punishment and will have negative ramifications in the group. He thinks a ban is going to be hard to communicate to the public. As usual, Alex will prove to be right on the mark.
In his heart, I don’t believe Mickey wants to ban the four players. The vice-captain being one of them makes it particularly sensitive. But there is such a strong feeling among the staff that Mickey has to act, or he will lose all respect. He has been told that Watto has been criticising him behind his back, and he knows that having gone this far, he has to follow through or else he will look weak and the disciplinary problems in the team will only get worse.
So Mickey, Gavin Dovey and I set ourselves up in a hotel room and hold individual meetings with each of the four players. Mickey is the one to break the news. He hates doing this, it’s so far out of his comfort zone as a person and would cost him a lot emotionally. In a few weeks, it’s going to cost him his job.
The four players are shocked, disappointed and angry, all in their own ways. Patto is shattered at missing a game for Australia. He and Usman are pissed off, but it seems that they are most angry at themselves for forgetting to get back to Mickey. I try to help and support them as much as I can, telling them that it’s only one match and they will bounce back.
Mitch’s and Watto’s responses are directed more at the three of us on our side of the table. Mitch is extremely angry. ‘I f—ing forgot! What do you want me to do?’
Watto goes off his brain. He’s furious at Mickey and me. His line is, ‘We’re being dropped for something as small as this, while there are other blokes in this group who have done much worse and it’s been let go.’ From a justice point of view, he isn’t wrong. This is not a hanging offence. But this is where Mickey has decided to draw the line in the sand. The punishments are a signal to everyone in the team, including people who, as Watto says, have done worse things than him.
I knock on his door later, to placate him. I go into his room and assure him how important he is to the team and how much we need his leadership. It doesn’t do much good. Watto’s wife, Lee, is expecting their first child, so he has that on his mind. He will fly back to Australia for the birth, for which he has been given permission. So it turns out that he has been banned for a match that he would have mi
ssed anyway.
I support Mickey in taking a stand. If I hadn’t supported him, there was a chance for me to back Alex’s line in the staff discussion. Swayed by the strength of feeling among the support staff, I’m fully behind Mickey. But then, as has been happening so often, communicating the decision to the world turns into a shambles. Mickey makes the announcement that the four players are not going to be considered for the next Test, and focuses only on the ‘homework’ assignment instead of explaining that this is the culmination of a lot of disciplinary looseness over time. Soon after, James Sutherland rings me from Melbourne.
‘You have to do the media, Michael.’
‘What do you mean? I didn’t make the decision. It’s Mickey’s job. He does media all the time.’
‘You have to tell the world,’ James insists. ‘It hasn’t been communicated the right way.’
He’s right – we have let ourselves down with the way we have communicated this – but I hate having to step in now, and feel caught between a rock and a hard place. To explain it to the players has been unpleasant enough. I’m sure, given my determination to drive the bus, some of the players think that I have been behind the whole thing and have pushed Mickey into it. That’s not true. But if any players believe that already, they’re going to be convinced when they see me taking accountability for it in public. I tell the media that it’s not just the assignment but ‘stuff off the field that’s unacceptable for the standards an Australian cricket team . . . We can’t accept mediocrity here. Maybe I am biased, but there is a big difference between this team and other cricket teams. If you play for Australia, there is a lot that comes with that, and standards, discipline, culture are all a big part of what we’re talking about.’
When the Test match gets started, I win the toss and four of our guys – Ed Cowan, David Warner, Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc – dig in and produce some outstanding batting in the first innings. But ultimately, it’s not enough. I promote myself to number three in the first innings and make a first-ball duck. Down the order in the second, I’m little better as we collapse. Only Hughesy, with his best innings in India, gives our innings respectability. It’s another horrible loss, made even worse by knowing that the outside world is taking the piss out of us for what they’re calling ‘Homeworkgate’. The idea that four Test cricketers have been sacked for not doing their ‘homework’ makes us a laughing stock.
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