DETAILS have emerged of a cultural breakdown in Australian cricket with skipper Michael Clarke forced to redress a slew of problems including Test stars being overweight and turning up late to training and team meetings.

In an indictment on some of Cricket Australia’s highly-paid elite, News Limited has obtained detailed examples of conduct breaches that yesterday led to unprecedented action from team hierarchy.
Skipper Michael Clarke and coach Mickey Arthur have defended the axing of the flagrant four, saying it was the final straw following a string of non-alcohol related indiscretions in recent months.
The pair did not detail other infractions and CA high-performance chief Pat Howard also declined to elaborate when he fronted the media in Brisbane yesterday.
But News Limited can today reveal the precise nature of general tardiness that prompted Clarke and Arthur to take action.
They include players:
SHOWING up late for team meetings and training sessions
MISSING medical and physiotherapy appointments
SLEEPING in and holding up the team bus
WEARING the wrong uniforms
FAILING to consistently complete CA health and well-being forms
RECORDING fluctuating skin-folds, with some players deemed overweight
The exact offenders are not known, but Clarke and Arthur became increasingly fed-up with the minor breaches they believe are undermining Australian cricket’s professional standards.
Former Test stars have blasted the hardline stance.
But it is hard to imagine ex-captains Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting tolerating teammates being late for training and formal meetings during Australia’s reign over world cricket.
Dumped paceman James Pattinson yesterday admitted his demotion with Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja was the culmination of ongoing conduct issues.
“We have had a few issues in the team, ones that I don’t really want to go into but it builds up and it is the final straw so to speak,” he said. “We need to send a message to the team, not just myself but everyone else.
“We have to take responsibility for where we are at as a team.
“We are a group of young players, we are not a group of great players like we’ve had in the past that can sometimes get away with it because they have performances on the board.
“We don’t have that. As a team we have to take responsibility moving forward because we are young men and we haven’t made it in Test cricket.
“At the moment, we have to do everything right to make us into a great team.”
Underlining the attitudinal issues, Australian hierarchy had become so conditioned to players not completing a ‘wellness’ form they were taken aback when every member submitted one over the weekend.
In recognition of the squad’s youth, Clarke and Arthur had previously overlooked the breaches. But after two dismal Test showings against India, concerns grew that flagging off-field cultural standards, however minor, were damaging on-field performance.
“There have been a number of issues on this tour where I don’t think we have been hitting our standards,” Clarke said. “We are not doing what is required for this Australian cricket team to have the success we want it to have.
“It’s no coincidence we have lost the first two Test matches quite convincingly.
“Our goal is to be the No.1 cricket team in the world, but at the moment we haven’t been hitting those standards.”
Team manager Gavin Dovey, formerly England rugby’s operations chief, said this was a wake-up call for Australia’s elite cricketers.
“We’d probably given reasonable degrees of latitude with a lot of players,” Dovey said. “We felt that this was a really watershed moment as far as we have given lots of people opportunities here (for players) to buy into really high expectations that we’ve inherited.
“We couldn’t be soft (any longer).
“At some point, we needed to take a pretty strong stand to ensure that we get some long-term success.
“While I think there might be some initial reaction or shock, I actually think the decision is a very straightforward one if we are to be fairly ruthless and remain on track.”