"Pup ate my homework".

[The InnFORCEr]

Cricket's sports science standards are a decade or more behind many other sporting codes yet few sports resist change like cricket.

Get Stevo over to CA, he'll sort them out with a few jabs here and there, I don't think he is working with any of the footy codes at the moment

[sittingbison]

Hold it fellas.

If standards are slipping, sure one way to solve the problem might be a kick up the bum. But this action most certainly is NOT the way to go about it, nor are these the right guys to pick on. Arthur and Clarke have made the Australian cricket team a world wide laughingstock. Plain and simple. This entire incident should never have happened in the first place, let alone turned into this public farce.

The real problem here is captain and coach should NOT be selectors.

The second problem is the nature of Arthur and Clarke. Establishing and maintaining standards (and BTW what a pathetic bunch of issues to measure standards) are the direct responsibility of the coach. Arthur does not garner respect, he is a martinet. Yelling at adults (ie dropping them) for a pathetic reason like "homework" does not make him a hard man to be respected, it makes him out to be a wanker to be laughed at...which is exactly whats happening. Clarke is a sycophant, and a nasty vindictive self centred weasel. Always has been, always will be. Its his nature.

Its as simple as this. The ship is going down, yet the captain is blaming the crew. Sorry, that goes against everything I believe about leadership and teamwork.

[PeterM]

Sittingbison just on Mickey Arthur as coach where were South Africa when he took them over? Look what he did with them. He put some good building blocks in place with Western Australia before taking over the national job and I believe he has the best interests of the nation in place and in time will get Australia up to the top of world cricket again

[jargan83]

Hold it fellas.

If standards are slipping, sure one way to solve the problem might be a kick up the bum. But this action most certainly is NOT the way to go about it, nor are these the right guys to pick on. Arthur and Clarke have made the Australian cricket team a world wide laughingstock. Plain and simple. This entire incident should never have happened in the first place, let alone turned into this public farce.

The real problem here is captain and coach should NOT be selectors.

The second problem is the nature of Arthur and Clarke. Establishing and maintaining standards (and BTW what a pathetic bunch of issues to measure standards) are the direct responsibility of the coach. Arthur does not garner respect, he is a martinet. Yelling at adults (ie dropping them) for a pathetic reason like "homework" does not make him a hard man to be respected, it makes him out to be a wanker to be laughed at...which is exactly whats happening. Clarke is a sycophant, and a nasty vindictive self centred weasel. Always has been, always will be. Its his nature.

Its as simple as this. The ship is going down, yet the captain is blaming the crew. Sorry, that goes against everything I believe about leadership and teamwork.

How is it not the way to go about it?

It's not as if Arthur asked for an essay or an hour long presentation. 12 of the squad in India complied with the request and the players that did not were told they would not be considered for selection.

My first thought was that there is more to it and there clearly is.

Players arriving late to physio appointments? Not in correct attire? Most workplaces have a dress code and players rolling up late to appointments is simply unprofessional

When Watson was leaving India he could have just said he was going home for the birth of his child as planned but instead said he was considering his place in the team?

I'll back Clarke before I back that pea hearted sook Shane Watson

[sittingbison]

the way to go about it is NOT to completely lose the plot with a massive over reaction, and NOT do so in public. It has achieved NONE of the so called desired results, made Arthur and Clarke individually and the team collectively a laughingstock, and painted Watson into a corner even without his subsequent "petulance". To top it off that prick Howard has frakked Watson good and proper, making the entire issue into a Clarke vs Watson handbags.

The players that failed to hand in homework were NOT told there would be repercussions, certainly not being banned from the Test.

All the BS about players being tardy, wearing the wrong tie, giving Mickey lip etc are NOT about these four specifically. These four are carrying the can for the MINOR indiscretions of the whole team, they are being made an example of. If Arthur and Clarke cannot figure out that morale is going down the toilet, and how to improve it by dealing with the so called indiscretions and utilising other more pro-active actions, THEY are the ones who should be stood down.

This whole sorry mess is a complete and utter failure of management and leadership.

PeterM, I disagree with you on Arthur and WA. The team before during and after him has been a complete shambles, only recently showing some ticker after the appointment of Langer. Arthur did nothing to improve the situation, in fact made it worse then jumped ship at the first opportunity. Sound familiar?

In fact it reminds me what my mum always said...never trust a man with two first names

Braindead Dick
Braindead Mick

[jargan83]

Whats wrong of being made example of?

So the Team should adopt an approach to a task where they will only do it when threatened with suspension? Thats hardly constructive

I fail to see how it is a leadership issue when Shane Watson is a part of leadership group! Surely he could have taken 5 minutes out of a day on tour to chat to the coach, or slip a note under the coaches door like a few of his team mates. Not that hard when you've got 4 days to do a task

On form you would drop Shane Watson anyway given he has given up bowling to extend his Test career - which doesn't seem to apply when he's off playing hit and giggle in India

As a side note - WA have only shown some ticker since Michael Hussey returned from national duties, not because of Justin Langer. I invite you to go back and look at some the early season results in Shield Cricket

[Happy]

As a side note - WA have only shown some ticker since Michael Hussey returned from national duties, not because of Justin Langer. I invite you to go back and look at some the early season results in Shield Cricket

was thinking the same thing while watching the news last night on aunty

[Stone Cold]

PeterM, I disagree with you on Arthur and WA. The team before during and after him has been a complete shambles, only recently showing some ticker after the appointment of Langer. Arthur did nothing to improve the situation, in fact made it worse then jumped ship at the first opportunity. Sound familiar?

I disagree with your comments here about Mickey. He inherited a WA team that had some problems and put things in place to rectify it. He didn't "jump ship", he was promoted - there is a massive difference. Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity to coach a national side if you were a state coach? Incidentally, the Perth Scorchers have made the finals in the last two years of the big bash under Mickey.

Langer took over as the state team was getting better. He is good for the team but I'm not sure even he would be taking all the credit for the recent good form (and not a small amount of luck).

[sittingbison]

I have not said one iota on the merits of Shane Watson as a player or leader. His selection should be based on those merits, and should be in the hands of the actual selectors, not the captain and coach.

My opinion of Shane Watson as a player is he should not have been selected the whole season, his batting record over more than two full years is only 12 Tests averaging 24 with no centuries, his bowling is a meagre 20 wickets in only 21 innings (less than a wicket per innings) which includes 5 wickets in the Cape Town debacle. And my opinion of his as a leader is the VC was tossed to him as a milk sop to keep his ego happy. The guy is completely self centred, he has zero leadership abilities.

As to Arthur coaching WA, it my opinion he was equally useless at WA as he is for Australia. WA has been a basket case before during and after his reign. He certainly did not put in place any measures to improve the situation. The shield team getting better? Youre taking the piss stonecold, the shield team was a complete rabble until after Langer took over. Whether it be Langer, Hussey, luck or a combination of all three, the late season resurgence has nothing to do with Arthur.

And Scorchers does not count. Firstly because its barely cricket, secondly because the team is barely WA shield. Thirdly because we were equally useless and ill disciplined this year until a late season resurgence, and he wasnt the coach last year either.

All this though has nothing to do with this debacle, which is a failure of leadership by both Arthur and Clarke.