Four Australians Stood Down For Mohali Test

Four Australians Stood Down For Mohali Test

Vice-captain Shane Watson is one of the players to have been made unavailable for the third Test in Mohali

©REUTERS / Action Images

Four Australian players - Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja and James Pattinson - have been made unavailable for selection ahead of the third Test against India in Mohali.

The players have effectively been dropped after failing to complete a team assignment following the innings defeat in Hyderabad.

All players were asked to produce a written plan for their approach to training and preparation for the next Test but vice-captain Watson, batsman Khawaja and fast bowlers Johnson and Pattinson failed to do so.

"We pride ourselves on attitude," coach Mickey Arthur said.

"We have given the players a huge amount of latitude to get attitude and culture right. We believe that those behaviours were not consistent with what we want to do with this team.

"The teams that are the best in the world have best attitude, best behaviour patterns and a good hard ruthless culture.

"We've given an expectation that is spelt out and although this one incident might seem very small in isolation this is in fact a line in the sand moment for us, as a unit, in our quest to become the best in the world."

The four players will be available for selection in the final Test, which gets underway in Delhi on 22nd March.

It is a distraction that Australia hardly needed, after they lost the first two Tests in Chennai and Hyderabad. Watson and Pattinson played in both, while Khawaja was expected to be handed a recall to replace the badly out of form Phillip Hughes in Mohali.

The third Test begins on Thursday (14th March).

© Cricket World 2013