Cosgrove suspended for poor behaviour

Mark Cosgrove, David Warner and Aaron Finch have been suspended from the Centre of Excellence for a month for "repeated inappropriate treatment of accommodation facilities". The three players, who have been involved in the Emerging Players Tournament in Queensland over the past two weeks, will miss the Academy tour of India starting on August 10.

"We reiterated our expectations of them when representing Cricket Australia," Michael Brown, the acting chief executive of Cricket Australia, said. "We'll be taking this opportunity to remind all our scholars of their responsibilities at the Centre of Excellence and I would like to apologise to the management of the accommodation facility in Brisbane for the behaviour of the three players."

The Courier Mail reported there were repeated complaints over the players' actions at the apartment block where they stayed. The paper said there was believed to have been no major incident but marks had been left on walls and floors in the apartments and food had been disposed of inappropriately.

Darren Lehmann, the president of the Australian Cricketers' Association and a mentor of Cosgrove's at South Australia, said he had not heard that anything other than "a messy room" was behind the bans. "If that's the reason, I'm pretty disappointed in that," Lehmann told the Age. "My kids have got a messy room and I can't kick them out of home.

"I spoke to Mark and he has assured me that it is only about the room. He is pretty disappointed with the whole scenario. It's a setback in what hopefully can still be a long and fruitful career. He was working hard and doing everything that was asked of him.

"If it's something major, then we understand the ramifications. We'll be asking some questions of Mark and also of Cricket Australia. He's got to bounce back and prove everyone wrong again."

Cosgrove has played three ODIs for Australia while Warner and Finch, who are both 20, are yet to make their first-class debuts. It has been a bad week for the Academy after they lost to Karnataka State Cricket Association XI on Wednesday to miss out on the final of the Emerging Players Tournament.