Tim Nielsen declines the talks of panic and infighting among the Australian squad
Australian cricket coach Tim Nielsen has strongly declined the claims of disharmony within Australia team over its seven-match losing string across all formats. Nielsen rather called the talks of panic or infighting among the team members
as “uneducated opinion” and said that all these conspiracies cannot upset the team.
"As is often the case, as soon as we lose a couple of games there is all sorts of talk about disharmony and infighting within the team," Nielsen expressed. "This couldn't be further from the truth and (is) a standard barb thrown by those
outside the group searching for a reason why we are losing."
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 has gone through a run of poor form in its recent appearances against various sides including Ashes rivals England, India and Sri Lanka. After losing five-match Test series against formidable England side by 3-2 this summer, Australia
had a catastrophic http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 tour last month. Ricky Ponting’s side was whitewashed by Dhoni’s armoury in a two-match Test series. The 2-0 drubbing, which dragged Australia to No. 5 spot on the ICC test rankings, a place behind England, was followed by 1-0 ODI
series defeat after 2 of the three one-days were whitewashed.
Australia continued the run of losses even after returning home losing one T20 International and two one-dayers against Sri Lanka. The losing streak of Kangaroos was broken last Sunday after they defeated Sri Lanka in third One Day International
of the three-match ODI series, though Sri Lanka won the series by 2-1. It was Sri Lanka’s ever first series win against Australia in the land down under.
The recent losing streak caught a heavy criticism of former Australian cricketers and in the limelight is their beleaguered captain, Ricky Ponting. The critiques claimed that there is some panic and infighting among the squad that has led
to the recent poor performance of side but the coach dismissed the claims and said that the 2-1 loss to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 was not due to disharmony in the team rather the side failed to play its game against the tourists.
"Ultimately, we lost because we didn't bat, bowl or field well enough and Sri Lanka outplayed us in the first two ODIs," he said. "...there was no panic or infighting, I can promise you,” added Nielsen.
Nielsen said that his side is still on target for the historic Ashes rivalry, which starts on November 25 in Brisbane.
"I don't remember anything in my time as coach like the public and media scrutiny the team has seen this week," he said. "It is certainly made all the more difficult when results aren't coming and everyone in Australia has an opinion to
how to fix things up.”
Nielsen further added that the most important thing for Australia is to keep their eyes firmly on the targets and ensure that there is no panic or infighting amongst the team members. The Australian players are busy with their Sheffield
Shield tasks to get themselves acclimatized to the longer version of game. The Australian coach was positive that the players would utilize the couple of weeks ahead of Ashes opener in best preparation for the Ashes series.
The full-time selector of Australia, Greg Chappell had said that he would not favour an all-pace attack for the Gabba Test, giving Nathan Hauritz a green signal for the Ashes opener. Australian squad for the 1st Test of the five-match
Ashes series is expected to be announced on Monday.
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