Brad Haddin bats away talk of a rift between captain and coach

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This was published 9 years ago

Brad Haddin bats away talk of a rift between captain and coach

By Ben Horne

Brad Haddin has moved to dismiss talk of a rift between coach and captain, saying he'd be concerned if the big hitters in Australian cricket weren't butting heads.

The fallout from Australia's embarrassing loss to Zimbabwe last Sunday has focused on Darren Lehmann and Michael Clarke having a public differing of opinion on selection matters.

Brad Haddin says a couple of bumbling performances in a one-day tri-series in Harare do not mean the wheels have fallen off.

Brad Haddin says a couple of bumbling performances in a one-day tri-series in Harare do not mean the wheels have fallen off.Credit: AFP

Clarke was angered Steve Smith wasn't picked to play in the spinning conditions.

Lehmann was wishing his skipper had kept his mouth shut.

Regardless of whether or not Lehmann and Clarke are failing to see eye to eye on some matters, their dynamic doesn't appear to have changed since they started together last year on the eve of back-to-back Ashes campaigns.

It was the combination of Lehmann's authoritative coaching style and Clarke's perfectionist personality that turned Australia from Ashes embarrassments to champions within a few months.

Instead of the more vanilla approach to team matters that had been allowed to fester, Lehmann didn't take over the reins to make friends.

Australia's crushing Test series wins over England and South Africa were ringing endorsements of their combination and the pair speak every day.

Veteran wicketkeeper Haddin says a couple of bumbling performances in a one-day tri-series in Harare doesn't mean the wheels have fallen off.

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"If they were getting on all the time I think that would be a real problem," Haddin said.

"In the years I've played cricket, I've never known a coach and a captain to agree 100 per cent of the time.

"That's the beauty about being in a team and learning. You have different ideas about moving forward as a team and learning from different people."

Lehmann stripped paint off the walls in the Harare change rooms last Sunday following the three-wicket loss to Zimbabwe, which will go down as one of Australia's all-time worst performances.

But despite the fact Australia has enjoyed mostly good times since Lehmann took over, it was far from his first spray.

"No, we've had some beauties," Haddin said.

"He gets it off his chest pretty quick and then we move on. But we knew where we went wrong."

Lehmann's opinion on the Zimbabwe loss was that any combination of Australia's 14-man squad should have been good enough to beat the No.10 ranked team in the world - and making a big deal of selection mistakes was missing the point.

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Especially when selectors have been looking at the bigger picture of next year's World Cup and wanting to make sure everyone in the squad is given a run.

AAP

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