“Team spirit in the dressing room is of utmost importance,” says the English skipper Alastair Cook. It was said in the context of the statement issued by ex-coach of Australian Cricket Team Mickey Arthur who sparked up a controversy by saying that Michael Clarke feels that Shane Watson is a “cancer” for Australian Team. Meanwhile, Clarke didn’t give much attention to this allegation.
Reflecting back to the experience of what English team had last summer, when Kevin Pietersen was shown the doors for sending text messages to then England Captain Andrew Strauss, Cook was quoted by The Indian Express saying, "I can only speak what happen in our dressing room and clearly last summer we had a bad experience.”
Pietersen was dropped from the next test despite he scored a superb century against the Proteas. Cook added, "It shows how hard you've got to work at your team because a fully united team does help your cricket and we constantly have to work at it."
Meanwhile, Clarke looked focus on levelling the Ashes series by registering a much needed win at Lord’s. Australia fought it hard in the first test and would be looking to strengthen their batting which was quite mediocre in the opening test.
Clarke was quoted by Times of India saying, "The team is as galvanised as I can remember any Australian team. All the boys are in a really good place and we're looking forward to Thursday.”
Clarke also praised the role of Lehmann in creating dressing room harmony, saying: "We've got a fantastic group, with a great coach. He's united us. We're heading in the right direction."
Meanwhile the reports published in the Daily Telegraph, said that Arthur was fired two years before his contract was due to expire and is now seeking a compensation from the Australian Board of Aus$4 million (US$3.69 million) . He also claimed that he was discriminated because he was South African and "didn't understand the Australian way".
Arthur said he was disappointed that what he thought were confidential legal documents had been leaked to the media. "I have kept them confidential. Unfortunately, others have now made them public. I want to stress how important to me the members of the team were, and still remain to me. The welfare of the Australian cricket team is upmost to me."