‘Break would have benefited players’

Darren Lehmann promised Australia won’t be under-prepared for its tour of Bangladesh after a pay dispute left it temporarily unemployed — and said the enforced break may have even done it good.

But the coach said he would be sure to put his 14-man squad through their paces at a one-week training camp in tropical Darwin, before it leaves for the two-Test tour next Friday.

“The break’s been good for some of them, they’ve been at the back of a long summer with a lot of travel in the schedule so sometimes a refreshed mindset is really important,” Lehmann said. “They’ve all come in really excited to get going again.”