Pat Cummins takes swipe at Adam Gilchrist and David Warner over claims about Aussie Test team
The Australian captain has fired back at the Fox Cricket commentary team.
Pat Cummins has slapped down suggestions from the Fox Cricket team of a 'divide' in the Australian squad after comments made by Josh Hazlewood. Speaking during the first Test in Perth, the panel of Adam Gilchrist, David Warner, Ravi Shastri and Michael Vaughan were blown away by Hazlewood's comments.
When asked what the Aussies needed to do to avoid a humiliating defeat on the final day, Hazlewood replied: "You might need to ask the batters". Many interpreted the remark as a sly dig at the batting group, which seemed to suggest a 'divide' between teammates.
Gilchrist and Warner both expressed their shock at Hazlewood's tone, but Cummins has now fired back. “The team’s great," the captain said on Thursday ahead of the day-night second Test in Adelaide. "Some of the commentators got that 100 per cent wrong.
“We’ve prepared like we always do and get around each other. It’s a great feeling around the team. We don’t make too much of it. When things don’t go right, there are enough commentators that will support you but also some that will, of course, create some headlines. We try not to take too much notice of it. We just go about our things.”
When Gilchrist suggested Hazlewood's comments hinted all was not well, Warner said he believed the star bowler should have responded differently. “I think as a senior player you have a duty of care when you’re representing the team to have something (a message) the batters want to get across. All the batters are thinking about going out and batting,” Warner said.
“There’s not a lot of runs in that change-room at the moment, but to have the support from a senior bowler, those comments probably weren’t warranted. I don’t think there’s a divide in there, you probably see in great teams as well you could come off after a long day and start pointing fingers, but I don’t think there’s a divide.”
Michael Vaughan and Ravi Shastri left gobsmacked
Former England Test captain Michael Vaughan said he'd never heard that sort of comment from an Australian player, and was staggering by Hazlewood's comments he was already switching focus to the second Test. “Publicly, I’ve never heard an Australian come out and divide the camp into batters and bowlers,” he said. “There’s 11 batters, that will never change, every player has to bat. There’s two days to go in the Test match, it’s a long shot for Australia to get anything out of this game.
“But to publicly see a player say basically I’m thinking about the next game before this game is finished, I’ve been in many teams and I get it. You do get the batters and you do get the bowlers... but you can see there’s 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 don’t say that often about Australia.”
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Shastri said it showed mental cracks were already appearing. “What the Indian dressing room are thinking when they hear something like that, they know there’s some cracks on the pitch but there’s some mental cracks as well,” the Indian great said.
“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’.”
