England captain Alastair Cook said team spirit could never be taken for granted as Australia battled to present a united front after accusations of dressing room disharmony made by ex-coach Mickey Arthur.
England themselves have had problems last year when Kevin Pietersen, after scoring a superb Test hundred against his native South Africa at Headingley, was briefly dropped from the side for allegedly sending text messages critical of then England captain Andrew Strauss, who has since retired, to Proteas players.
“I can only speak what happens in our dressing room and clearly last summer we had a bad experience,” said Cook.
“It shows how hard you’ve got to work at your team because a fully united team does help your cricket and we constantly have to work at it.”
Meanwhile, Clarke insisted his side were pulling in the same direction ahead of Thursday’s second Test at lord’s, where Australia will look to level the series after a dramatic 14-run loss at Trent Bridge last week. “The team is as galvanised as I can remember any Australian team,” Clarke said. “All the boys are in a really good place and we’re looking forward to Thursday.
Clarke also praised the role of lehmann in creating dressing room harmony, saying: “We’ve got a fantastic group, with a great coach. He’s united us. We’re heading in the right direction.”
Arthur said he was disappointed that what he thought were confidential legal documents had been leaked to the media. “I have kept them confidential. Unfortunately, others have now made them public,” said Arthur. “I want to stress how important to me the members of the team were, and still remain to me. The welfare of the Australian cricket team is upmost to me.”