“It’s time to move on from Mickey Arthur’s sacking to Darren Lehmann’s coaching,” says the Australian wicket keeper Brad Haddin. He brushed aside the claim of Arthur that there was a rift between Michael Clarke and Shane Watson by saying that they never had such things in dressing room that he was talking about. Arthur was shown the doors 16 days prior to the start of Ashes series and was replaced by the former Aussie batsman Darren Lehmann.
Australia fell just short by 14 runs in the first test at Trent Bridge and is now trailing by 0-1 in the series. Wicketkeeper-batsman Haddin was quoted by The Times of India saying, "The Australian dressing room is fine. I don't know how many times we need to answer this. I think everyone was surprised (by Arthur's sacking) but there's no point talking about it anymore. We've gone past all this, we're moving forward with the campaign," added Haddin.
Haddin fought very hard in the second innings where he made 71 which nearly led Australia to a stunning first Test win. Haddin wants his team to focus on winning the Ashes rather than getting bogged down by the rumours that were lingering in the media. He is looking forward to reap some good result under the tenure of Darren Lehmann, who has been working quite hard with them.
Aussie keeper was quoted by Hindustan Times saying, "We're all pretty excited to be in an Ashes campaign. Darren's done a wonderful job, like all our staff and players. All the other stuff that we can talk about is white noise so it's not something that has affected the side at all. I'm not going to get into what ifs and who was better than this and who was wasn't as good as this; our job is to just get on with this campaign."
Meanwhile the reports in Indian Express quoted Cricket Australia lawyer, Dean Kino, saying, "We're disappointed it has come to this position but Cricket Australia is confident in its position on this matter and I'm sure it will get resolved in an appropriate fashion."
All this controversy sparked up when Australia was on tour to India. Arthur suspended the quartet of Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja just before the Third test that was played at Mohali. This incident took place because of the so-called "homework" that was given by Arthur and this quartet failed to do that.
The relation between Aussie coach and players touched the nadir when Australia lost 4-0 and Arthur’s departure from the dressing room was lurking round the corner. But now the former Aussie coach has allegedly complained that he was discriminated against because he was South African which has been rubbished by most of the former cricketers.