<p>Sacked Australian coach Mickey Arthur on Tuesday admitted he “lost” Shane Watson, while criticising the team’s young players for having “big egos” while earning “obscene amounts of money”.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The South African has refrained from commenting since being dumped just weeks before the Ashes campaign against England, but in an interview with Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph he detailed a fractured relationship with his vice-captain.<br />“My relationships were outstanding, except with Watson. He was one of the guys I lost,” Arthur said.<br /><br />“India was where it started going wrong, when we suspended those players.<br />“If I sit back and think, ‘would I have done it again?’, well, I probably would. Because I believed so much in what we were trying to do.”<br /><br />In a shambolic Test tour of India earlier this year , Australia lost 4-0 with Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja being disciplined by Arthur after failing to submit feedback requested by team management.<br /><br />They were axed with Watson controversially sent home.<br /><br />“I met with all our staff before I did it and our staff were adamant that was the right way to go,” said Arthur.<br /><br />“I ended up making those decisions and then ended up bearing the brunt of them.”<br />Arthur ultimately paid the price for a poor Champions Trophy campaign in England and a lack of discipline in the team, which came to a head when David Warner punched England’s Joe Root in a Birmingham bar in June.<br /><br />The coach was fired with two years still on his contract and replaced by Darren Lehmann.<br /><br />Arthur sued Cricket Australia for his job back or up to Aus$4 million in compensation, saying there was a deliberate campaign against him. But he settled after “significantly reducing” his claim.<br /><br />Arthur said he was annoyed because “I put my head on the line with a lot of big decisions and a lot of the people who were very keen for us to make those decisions then backtracked”. <br /><br />Australia embarked on the troubled India tour without the experience of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey, who both retired, and Arthur said the squad missed the batsmen’s steadying influence.<br /><br />He said a worrying lack of leadership prompted him to draw up a document of guidelines for the young players entering the squad.<br /></p>
<p>Sacked Australian coach Mickey Arthur on Tuesday admitted he “lost” Shane Watson, while criticising the team’s young players for having “big egos” while earning “obscene amounts of money”.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The South African has refrained from commenting since being dumped just weeks before the Ashes campaign against England, but in an interview with Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph he detailed a fractured relationship with his vice-captain.<br />“My relationships were outstanding, except with Watson. He was one of the guys I lost,” Arthur said.<br /><br />“India was where it started going wrong, when we suspended those players.<br />“If I sit back and think, ‘would I have done it again?’, well, I probably would. Because I believed so much in what we were trying to do.”<br /><br />In a shambolic Test tour of India earlier this year , Australia lost 4-0 with Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja being disciplined by Arthur after failing to submit feedback requested by team management.<br /><br />They were axed with Watson controversially sent home.<br /><br />“I met with all our staff before I did it and our staff were adamant that was the right way to go,” said Arthur.<br /><br />“I ended up making those decisions and then ended up bearing the brunt of them.”<br />Arthur ultimately paid the price for a poor Champions Trophy campaign in England and a lack of discipline in the team, which came to a head when David Warner punched England’s Joe Root in a Birmingham bar in June.<br /><br />The coach was fired with two years still on his contract and replaced by Darren Lehmann.<br /><br />Arthur sued Cricket Australia for his job back or up to Aus$4 million in compensation, saying there was a deliberate campaign against him. But he settled after “significantly reducing” his claim.<br /><br />Arthur said he was annoyed because “I put my head on the line with a lot of big decisions and a lot of the people who were very keen for us to make those decisions then backtracked”. <br /><br />Australia embarked on the troubled India tour without the experience of Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey, who both retired, and Arthur said the squad missed the batsmen’s steadying influence.<br /><br />He said a worrying lack of leadership prompted him to draw up a document of guidelines for the young players entering the squad.<br /></p>