Biting the bullet (points): Clarke, Arthur have caused serious damage by slapping disproportionate punishments on four players

Four Australian cricketers were axed from the third Test squad at Mohali on a bizarre disciplinary ground on March 3, 2013. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at an incident that defies all logic.
 
I was checking for Twitter feeds on Monday afternoon when I came across a series of bizarre tweets from a few Australian cricketers I follow. Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Darren Lehmann — all of them mentioned that four Australian cricketers were axed from the upcoming Mohali Test.
 
For a moment I thought this was a joke of some kind — somewhat similar to the ones featured in CricketCountry’s humour section. Curious, I checked the internet, and found that Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson were dropped on disciplinary grounds.
 
That was all. It seemed rather strange that Pattinson would be dropped, I thought. He was by far the best Australian bowler in the ongoing series. Watson’s omission made sense, though I’d ideally have preferred Phil Hughes to be left out. What was even intriguing was the fact that Khawaja and Johnson had been ruled out. They must have done something really horrible, I thought.
 
Within an hour the detailed news poured over the websites. After the team’s shambolic performances at Chennai and Hyderabad, Australian coach Mickey Arthur had apparently asked each member of the Australian squad to suggest three methods to improve the quality of their cricket in the series.

Watson, Pattinson, Khawaja, and Johnson had apparently not been able to submit their ‘homework’ on time. One would think they would be asked to work on it, or if indeed some punishment was to be dished out, they would probably have to do a couple of extra laps.
 
Instead, all four were axed from the third Test of the series at Mohali. Yes, this is for a side that is down 0-2 in the series, and even a draw at Mohali will imply that they will have to relinquish the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Pattinson and Khawaja were not there on Australia’s last trip to India, but in the Mohali Test on that tour, Watson had scored scored 126 and 54, and Johnson had taken five for 64.
 
Agreed, discipline is one of the key factors that contribute towards making a team successful. You need to be diligent, you need to put up a certain work ethic, and you need to abide by your coach’s instructions. There is no problem with that. That is how the best teams have worked, and that is exactly how they are supposed to work.
 
It is evident what Mickey Arthur had tried to do. Not only did he want the players to think about the solutions themselves, the entire process may also have provided the team management with some fresh ideas. There is no arguing that this was a fine plan.
 
What is not acceptable, though, is the punishment that was dished out. Are all cricketers supposed to be thinkers? What if they could not come up with ideas within the stipulated time-limit? That is quite possible, isn’t it? Should that result in a person being dropped from an international side?
 
What message does this send out to veterans like Watson and Johnson? The fact that their years have all gone in vain, and despite their skills and performances, the inability to perform a simple off-field activity will come between them and a Test spot? Is that what coaching is about? Watson has headed for home in protest, and has already indicated that he may retire. Is that what the management wanted to do with their vice-captain? If yes, couldn’t they have waited till the end of the tour? Isn’t that going to simply shatter the morale of the team, which is already low in confidence after the debacles in the first two Tests?
 
What about the youngsters, then? Khawaja and Pattinson have arrived on the international scenario with dreams, similar to the dreams every village and club cricketer possesses in Australia and all over the world. They have probably sacrificed education, have let go of safer career pursuits, and have relinquished comfortable office desks to battle it out in the dogfight that world cricket is. What message does it send out to them? The fact that desk assignments are as important as on-field skills to make it to the Test team?
 
We’re possibly getting the basics wrong. If the team management had been keen on three points, they should have been ‘bat better’, ‘bowl better’, and ‘field better’. They are the basics. In an era of financial greed, we have somehow managed to forget the simple pleasures of the sport, and have tried our level best to ruin the sport by making the sport look like a bureaucratic institution clouded in red-tapisms of the worst sort.
 
Let us get back to the basics. Let us show the minimum bit of respect to our heroes who, over the past decades, have done their best to enrich the sport we all love. If the sport reigns above all, the cricketers definitely comes a close second. Not the team managements. Not the coaches.
 
And certainly not bullet points and powerpoint presentations.
 
(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ovshake and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)
 
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