Michael Clarke admitted to “pissing off” Matthew Hayden, having much the same effect on another team-mate, Simon Katich, as well as confessing to being a bad vice-captain.
The Australian captain was speaking on 60 Minutes when he opened up on some of the controversies that marked his 115-test career ahead of the release of his autobiography on Tuesday.
He admitted that, at the dressing room stoush at the SCG with Katich in 2009, he the doughty left-hander had grabbed him by the shirt when Clarke wanted to get the team song sung in order to get to another function.
“I think a lot of us were getting wound up,” he said of the incident.
Clarke said that a number of other Australian players were not too happy either, including opening batsman Hayden, who it transpired was set to retire.
“I think Haydos was pissed off as well that that happened in his last Test,” Clarke said.
Clarke’s time under Ricky Ponting was also fraught on a number of levels.
He said that when he assumed the vice-captaincy it was expected in most quarters that he would go on to lead the side.
“I said that there is a number of players or 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,” he said of the 2013 slight which came to light via former coach Mickey Arthur.