Former Australia wicketkeeper-batter Adam Gilchrist said Josh Hazlewood’s comments post a crushing day three’s play for the hosts in the first Test against India have suggested to him that there is a likelihood of divide in the dressing room. In the post-day press conference after day three ended, Hazlewood was asked about how Australia would approach day four. His response to the query was, “You probably have to ask one of the batters that question. I’m sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of physio and a bit of treatment, and I’m probably looking mostly towards the next Test and what plans we can do against these batters.”
“I guess the batters are just sticking to what they do, their preparation. They’ll have a hit in the morning and talk around plans of what happened in the first innings, how they can negate that and move forward and improve on that.”
During a discussion on day four’s play in the Perth Test, Gilchrist talked about it on Fox Sports and said, “That to me tells me there is potentially a divided change room. I don’t know if there is. I might be reading too much into that.”
He then asked former opener David Warner if there is more to read in Hazlewood’s comments. Warner said, “I think as a senior player you have a duty of care when you’re representing the team to have something the batters want to get across, all the batters are thinking about going out and batting.”
“There’s not a lot of runs in that changeroom 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.”
But former England skipper Michael Vaughan expressed his surprise over Hazlewood’s remarks. “Publicly, I’ve never heard an Australian come out and divide the camp into batters and bowlers. 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.”
Former India player and head coach Ravi Shastri remarked Hazlewood’s comments suggested “mental cracks” have emerged in the Australia camp after being pushed on the backfoot by the visitors’ in the ongoing match at Perth Stadium.
“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 What the Indian dressing room will be thinking when they hear something like that is we know there are some cracks on the pitch.”
“But there are some mental cracks as well in the opposition. Having come to Australia for 30-40 years, I think this is the first time an Indian team is feeling that, ‘you know what, we’re better than the opposition in their own backyard’. I don’t think an Indian team has ever thought that way. Quietly they will be thinking ‘we will have to lose it here’.”
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