Michael Bevan clarifies his coaching tweet

The former Aussie cricketer Michael Bevan has defended his coaching credentials and clarified his stand on the issue. He had tweeted and expressed his desire to coach the Australian batsmen in the wake of his team’s defeat in the second One-Day International against India in the ongoing series. However, his message on the social media attracted a lot of criticism, especially from the fast bowler Peter Siddle.

Australia lost the third match in Indore and with that the 5-match series on Sunday and once again they lost the match from a demanding position which was the case in the previous two games as well. They were well placed at 216/1 after 36 overs batting first courtesy the century from Aaron Finch but failed to capitalise on it and lost their way in the death overs. The home team came back stunningly to restrict them to 293, the score which at one stage looked good enough to cross into 350.

Bevan cleared his purposes while talking to cricket.com.au on Monday and said that he had no intention of linking the current performances of the team with his coaching tweet.

“There was no intention to link the Australia performances with the fact that I wanted to do the (batting coach) role. The Australian one-day team have had a great record for a long time now. It really wasn’t my intention to have a go at anyone off the back of two bad games. Any player knows a couple of bad games doesn’t mean that much,” he said.

The best finisher of his times also explained that he had just turned a specialist batting coach and did not have the intention to disrespect anyone.

“It was never my intention to disrespect anyone, it was more just the fact that I’ve made the transition from a head coach to a specialist batting coach just recently and I just wanted to make it known I was happy to look for batting roles,” Bevan added.

Harsh criticism from Peter Siddle

The former Test quick Peter Siddle was left fuming when he came to know about Bevan’s comments and heavily criticised him. “He’s had 15 years to apply for a job with Cricket Australia and help out around the country and he hasn’t. The boys want support, not those blokes that haven’t been around and haven’t been helping out at either State or international cricket just to throw out a tweet,” he told Fox Sports News.

“It’s a little bit low. I’d love to see him apply for a job with NSW or Victoria, start doing some work, not just throwing out a tweet when we’re going bad, and when we’re going well we don’t hear from him. He was a brilliant player for Australia, one of the best. To have him around would be outstanding, but to just throw it out there after a bad loss is a bit disappointing,” Siddle added.

Bevan responds to Siddle

However, the left-handed batsman has accepted the ire of Siddle but defended his coaching activity. “I think Peter Siddle’s comments were well intentioned … but I’m not sure he knew my background in terms of my recent coaching in Sydney Premier cricket or my attempts to find work within the Cricket Australia framework,” Bevan said.

“But I agree with him that everyone has to pay their dues and go through the due course of coaching to get experience and go through the levels. I agree with that but not with the claim I hadn’t been putting myself out there in the Australian coaching field,” he tried close out the unwanted controversy.