The dynamic definitely changed under Clarke: Mitchell Johnson

The mysteries revolving Michael Clarke, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, and Shane Watson seem to be unraveling with a series of autobiographies being released by both Johnson and Clarke. Mitchell Johnson, the former fiery Australian pacer has blamed former Australian skipper Michael Clarke for creating a toxic environment within the Australian team at the time.

In his book – Resilient, Johnson has written that groupism was something that prevailed to quite an extent stating that there was a tectonic shift and a significant one at that. Earlier in the week, the 35-year old pacer had revealed that Shane Watson had shoved his head in the toilet during their junior days at the cricket academy.

“The dynamics definitely changed. It became more groups in the team. It wasn`t a team. There was different little factions going on and it was very toxic,” Johnson told Fox Sports News late Thursday.

This was the time when the Aussies had appointed a new coach in the form of Mickey Arthur. The South African, who currently serves as the coach of Pakistan said that characters like Watson were ‘like a tumor’ to the overall team. Needless to say, Arthur was sacked from his position as head coach of Australia before going into oblivion prior to landing the Pakistan role.

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Johnson also revealed that the process was taking way too much time and that nothing was being done about the team in terms of progress at the time. “It just built very slowly but everyone could see it, everyone could feel it and nothing was being done at that time.”

Simon Katich, who had a particularly bad relationship with Clarke revealed that there was no love lost between the two in spite of the rumors going on about the make-up. “(Our relationship) has been non-existent, so to suggest we are mates now after everything that has happened is a bit of a stretch,” said Katich.

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