GILLY IRKED BY TOXIC TALK

MUMBAI: Over the past few weeks, eyebrows have been raised at the culture in the Australia dressing room during the reign of ex-skipper Michael Clarke, after former fast bowler Mitchell Johnson described it as “fractured and toxic”.

Johnson was talking about how cliques had developed after Ricky Ponting relinquished captaincy in 2011. “The dynamics definitely changed. It became more groups in the team. It wasn’t a team... There were different little factions going

watch. He’ll continue to rise into that role of complete captain of India in all forms at some time,” Gilchrist added.

In March, former team director Ravi Shastri had said that Virat Kohli should be handed the job across all formats. Shastri even went on to say that such a decision would be in the “good of Indian cricket”. on and it was very toxic. So it wasn’t a very enjoyable place to be in 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,” Johnson had told Fox Sports News.

Former Australia player Adam Gilchrist branded the talk as disappointing. “All the discussion around the issue has been disappointing,” he said before talking about the current Australia team. HTC

His rationale was that this was the best time for the team to transition and build around Virat Kohli given that there were no major events till three years down the line.

However, many former cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar and Sourav Ganguly have thrown their weight behind MS Dhoni staying on as captain.