Urine samples, wellness indexes, homework assignments, it’s all a bit much for some former Australian Test players to grasp.
And some current players.
“It was just very interesting. Our players do wellness reports every day,” Australia coach Mickey Arthur said on Monday after announcing he’d banned four players from Thursday’s third Test match against India for failing to complete a homework assignment.
The squad had been asked how the team could improve following losses in the first two Tests.
“A couple of players have been slack (with their wellness reports). I made mention of it today,” Arthur added.
“We’ve taken this decision (to ban four players).
‘Bails’ (fitness coach Dave Bailey) has just come down and said unbelievably every one of those wellness reports has been done already.
“It’s the first (time) it’s ever happened.”
Ex-players have described the bans as ridiculous, schoolboy stuff.
Arthur, skipper Michael Clarke, team manager Gavin Dovey and James Pattinson, one of the four banned players, have all said the “homework gate” incident has been the last straw.
However they’ve failed to go into detail about the other problems.
It’s believed a lack of punctuality, slackness with wellness reports and a general casual attitude to what Arthur calls the one-percenters have been key factors.
Dovey said the squad had been given latitude in certain areas.
“Their environment in some ways is very simple,” Dovey said.
“In others there’s lots of things they need to do, whether it’s on the sports-science front or from my perspective on how the team presents itself and the brand, the image and what we wear and how we turn up, how we interact with people.
“We felt that this was a really watershed moment as far as we have given lots of people opportunities here to buy in to really high expectations that we’ve inherited, as well as what we want to create ourselves.
“In the context of this series to have four players we think disrespect the coach and disrespect the team, to show I’m not sure where their heads are at. To not do what’s required at what I think dawned on everyone as being a really critical part of this tour. We felt we couldn’t apply the same degrees of latitude.”
Every time a player turned up late for something, it was another moment building up to the volcanic decision to ban Pattinson, Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja from a Test match.