QUOTES OF THE WEEK...
FORMER Australian skipper Michael Clarke moved to clarify what he said about vice-captain Shane Watson in the wake of the homework-gate controversy on the 2013 tour to India.
Interviewed on Aussie TV current affairs programme 60 Minutes, Clarke denied he called Watson a cancer on the national side but did admit: “I said that there is a number of players, a group in this team at the moment, that are like a tumour and if we don’t fix it, it’s going to turn into a cancer,” duly confirming one of those players was Watson.
A tumour, not a cancer. That’s all right then.
Somewhat more sensitively, Clarke also spoke movingly of his reaction to the death of his friend Phillip Hughes.
“I guess I probably tried to tell myself that there was a chance he’d be OK,” Clarke said. “But I think I knew there wasn’t. I spent the whole night talking to him. That breaks my heart the most.” ALASTAIR Cook, soon to become England’s longest serving captain (in number of Tests) talking to SKY’s Mike Atherton, on the path to enlightenment:
“In the first half of my career, my stubbornness helped – that real determination to do it my way, I know the best way, helped me getting to where I got to. In my early captaincy I thought I’d do it the same way and then realised there are a lot of people who know a lot more about cricket than I do and I needed that help.”