Former Australian skipper Michael Clarke, in an interview on Monday with Australia's Channel 9, shed light on some of the controversies that surrounded his career, reported BBC.
The former Australian batsman admitted to have made a comment in 2013 that some players in his team were "like a tumour" but denied calling his teammate Shane Watson a "cancer". Australia's coach at that time Mickey Arthur, had made that accusation.
Watson was sent home during Australia's tour of India in 2013 under Clarke's captaincy in what was later dubbed as the infamous Homework-gate episode. Mickey Arthur, who was the Australian coach at the time, according to a leaked court document, claimed that Clarke had called Watson "a cancer".
Clarke refuted those reports, "I said that there is a number of players, a group in this team at the moment, that are like a tumour and if we don't fix it, it's going to turn into a cancer." The 35-year-old, however, confirmed that Watson was a part of the group that he had been referring to.
The former captain also spoke about the dressing room bust-up involving him and Simon Katich in 2009, with the latter having caught Clarke by the shirt after a disagreement. Clarke said that Katich had "every reason" to be angry. With tensions boiling over about when the Australian team song would be sung, Clarke lamented, "I don't think my language was appropriate".
Clarke also recalled how the untimely death of his friend and teammate Phillip Hughes had affected him. "It was always hard to play cricket after that. I felt fear for the first time in my life when I played cricket," Clarke said.
