Michael Clarke has launched a scathing attack on former teammates Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds and slammed John Buchanan, saying his dog could have done as good a job as the former national coach.
The former captain used his Ashes Diary 2015, released this week, to square the ledger with members from Australia's glory era who took a public swipe at him after he announced his international retirement in August.
Clarke comes across as slightly thin skinned in those excerpts. Arguably the most shocking thing I read in that article was that he named his dog Jerry.
While I haven't read the book yet, and it isn't the top of my list, I have to be honest...Clarke for me always did come across as a person that wanted to get his own way and couldn't take criticism from any level.
There's no doubting his class on the pitch, but he never had the right mentality to me, and if what's in this thread is true, then the book will prove that I think.
More often than not, player autobiographies/diaries are nothing more than fluff and filler. Michael Clarke's book appears to be the opposite. Reading a few more of the excerpts, this time regarding the dropping of Brad Hadden, Clarke takes a pop at selectors Rod Marsh and Darren Lehmann. He was also not in favour of pairing Johnson and Starc during the Ashes series, believing the team would have been better served with one or the other, giving the team a little more balance.
Quote: "I think both Johnson and Starc are aggressive, attacking strike weapons who can leak runs but will take wickets. You need at least one of them in your team. The question is, for balance, do you want both, especially as they're both lefties? Probably not, in seaming English conditions. In an ideal world, in the future maybe, you could play them both. In fairness to them, it might've helped if we had more runs on the board.
"I know as a captain I can use that one left-hander better if I have more consistency around him. I think I showed that in the home Ashes when I had Harris, Siddle and Shane Watson as my consistent, control bowlers and I was able to use Johnson in short, fiery bursts. He was unstoppable."
From the sounds of it he doesn't have a good word to say about many people in the game, and if that is the case utvmakes you wonder why he stayed in their as long as he did.
Was he REALLY that unhappy or is this just sensationalism to promote the book?