Jason Gillespie, the former Test bowler, is disappointed news of Michael Clarke's heated exchange with Simon Katich leaked from the dressing room. Gillespie spent a decade with the side and said incidents between team-mates occurred, but wanted them to stay with the group.
The Clarke-Katich tussle happened at the end of the SCG Test in January and did not become public until Friday, the day Clarke was due to lead the one-day team. "I am very disappointed that this has got out," Gillespie said in the Courier-Mail. "It is not the done thing.
"I am not worried about scuffles - that can happen in any team or workplace. Blokes have disagreements from time to time - that is just life - but I am just disappointed it all got out of the dressing room."
Clarke, 27, is the side's vice-captain and the latest incident has led to questions about his capabilities to lead the side when Ricky Ponting retires. John Buchanan, the former team coach, said Clarke appeared to be saying and doing "all the right things".
"I think he has still got a long way to go in terms of maturity and understanding what the word 'team' really means," Buchanan said in the Sydney Morning Herald. "But the more opportunities he is given to learn that, whether in a formal leadership sense or in and around people like Ponting and [Michael] Hussey and others, the better. Whether he chooses to take those opportunities or not is up to him."
Tim Nielsen, the Australia coach, wrote in his Cricket Australia blog that it was time to move on. "It's obviously not a big deal for us because like any group or family that travels, works and lives together, there are going to be disagreements," he wrote. "It was dealt with at the time and as far as we're concerned we moved on."