Perth [Australia], November 26: Former cricketers Ravi Shastri and Michael Vaughan raised questions on ‘unity’ within the Australian team after pacer Josh Hazlewood seemed to shift the blame for the loss against India at Perth to batters.
Following Australia’s shocking 295-run loss to India at Perth’s Optus Stadium, which was Australia’s first-ever loss in Tests at the venue, Hazlewood said as quoted by Wisden, “You probably have to ask one of the batters that question probably, I am sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of treatment and I am looking mostly to next Test.”
Recently retired Aussie star David Warner, who is a part of the commentary, called Hazlewood’s comments ‘unwarranted,’ saying, “I think as a senior player you have a duty of care when you are representing the team to have something the batters want to get across, all the batters are thinking about going out and batting,” Warner said.
“There is not a lot of runs in that changeroom at the moment, but to have the support from a senior bowler, those comments probably were not warranted,” he added.
Vaughan also raised doubts over a possible divide in the team’s dressing room, saying that he has not heard anything like this ever from an Australian.
“Publicly, I have never heard an Australian come out and divide the camp into batters and bowlers. There is 11 batters, that will never change, every player has to bat. There is two days to go in the Test match, it is a long shot for Australia to get anything out of this game,” Vaughan said.
“But to publicly see a player say…I am thinking about the next game before this game is finished, I have been in many teams and I get it. You do get the batters and you do get the bowlers… but you can see there is a bit of grumpiness there, but to publicly come out and say that, I have never seen that from an Australian.”
“Any player around the globe, but particularly an Australian… I always look at the small details in every team… the togetherness and the lack of spirit in the outfield, you do not say that often about Australia,” he concluded.
Former Indian head coach Shastri also seemed to agree with Vaughan and said that visitors enjoy an upper hand over Aussies mentally, saying, “What the Indian dressing room are thinking when they hear something like that, they know there are some cracks on the pitch but there are some mental cracks as well.”
“Having come to Australia for 30 or 40 years, this is the first time an Indian team is feeling, ‘you know what, we are better than the opposition in their own backyard. Quietly they will be thinking ‘we will have to lose it here’,” Shastri added.