Mitchell Johnson criticises Michael Clarke: Says team culture was ‘toxic’ under ex-captain
Oct 28, 2016 at 5:09 PM
Former Australian pacer has made some surprising revelation in his recently-released autobiography, Resilient. The former left-arm pacer earlier created a stir by revealing that he was very close to punching England batsman Kevin Pietersen during a match. And now he has created another controversy by saying that the team culture under former skipper Michael Clarke was toxic.He claimed that the team was divided into small groups during Clarke’s tenure and revealed that the culture in the dressing room was so bad that a couple of players did not want to play.
Speaking to Fox Sports, the Ashes hero said: “The dynamics definitely changed. It became more groups in the team. It wasn’t a team as so. There was different little factions going on and it was very toxic. It (the toxic culture) just built very slowly but everybody could see it, everybody could feel it.”
“Nothing was being done at that time, so it wasn’t a very enjoyable place to be and you’re supposed to be enjoying yourself when you’re playing for your country It was a pretty bad experience, bad time, a couple of us didn’t want to play. Even some of the young guys coming through could see it a mile away and they didn’t enjoy it, they said ‘state cricket’s so much more fun,” he added.
The relationships between some players and Clarke went bad after the ‘homework gate incident’ during the 2013 Test series in India. Johnson along with Shane Watson, James Pattinson and Usman Khawaja were sent home midway through the tour. Recently, Clarke, in his autobiography, said that Watson was a part of a group that was like a ‘tumour’ for the team.
When quizzed about that, Johnson said:“I didn’t feel like I was, and if it is directed at me, I didn’t feel like a tumour in the team. As a player I always tried to put the team first, look after the team, that’s what I wanted to achieve and playing for Australia you obviously want to give your best as a player and you work extremely hard to do that, to get the best out of yourself.”
“You want to help the people coming through and that just wasn’t happening at that stage because of those groups that were split so it was very difficult and if I’m a tumour, I’m a tumour whatever. I’ve passed all that kind of stuff, I got on with my cricket and tried to really enjoy towards the end of my career and that’s what I did,” he concluded.