Coach Mickey Arthur says it’s not ideal the Australian cricket team’s disciplinary problems have been made public but he hopes it will be a catalyst to spark a new era of success.
Third-ranked Australia on Thursday made four changes to their lineup for the third Test against India following this week’s shock suspension of four players for failing to complete homework assignments.
The first day’s play was washed out in Mohali on Thursday.
Injured wicketkeeper Matthew Wade (ankle) was replaced by Brad Haddin who arrived earlier this week as a standby player.
Vice-captain Shane Watson and pace bowler James Pattinson had already been omitted for disciplinary reasons over the homeworkgate affair while squad members Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson were also declared unavailable for the third Test.
Offspinning allrounder Glenn Maxwell was dropped after making 21 runs and taking 4-127 on debut in the second Test in Hyderabad.
Young batsman Steve Smith was recalled along with pace bowler Mitchell Starc and offspinner Nathan Lyon.
Arthur expressed his concern this week that players had reported late for team meetings, returned high-skinfold readings, worn the wrong attire and given “back-chat” or “attitude”.
Failure to deliver homework assignments on time last Saturday night was the last straw.
Arthur said he felt his team were on the right path despite trailing two-nil in the four-match series.
“We want our brand to be the best in world cricket and, in order to do that, we needed to shift some cultural and attitude changes,” Arthur said.
“The incident was miniscule in the greater scheme of things but we needed to make an example of the direction we wanted to go.”
Arthur – whose decision to ban the four players was made in partnership with captain Michael Clarke and team manager Gavin Dovey – says the team have moved on and are in a good place.
“It has to ultimately become public when it involves so many players,” Arthur said.
“I don’t like it being public. That’s not my style but we had given the guys a year really to set culture and do what they wanted to do.
“We just felt we needed to right now put it all together.
“It’s not ideal out in the open but, if this is the catalyst to get us to No.1 in the world, then so be it.”