Genie Watson comes out of the bottle

Shaken and stirred after the humiliating loss in the second Test at Mohali, the Australians were sipping beer as they wondered what went wrong.

Shaken and stirred after the humiliating loss in the second Test at Mohali, the Australians were sipping beer as they wondered what went wrong. The odd man out, not in terms of Test performance but the beverage, was Shane Watson, who rather preferred soda water.

Except for some celebratory champagne after the Rajasthan Royals8217;s win in the IPL, the all-rounder hasn8217;t touched alcohol for the past 13 months 8212; a move that has worked wonders in reviving his career.

8220;I8217;m off drinking while I8217;m playing and training so I can give myself every chance I possibly can to be right through this big workload,8221; Watson was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald. 8220;To me it is not a sacrifice at all, because the things I have been able to achieve, even over the last six or eight months, have been things I definitely never thought I would 13 months ago.8221;

But doesn8217;t that make him stick out during team get-togethers? 8220;I have saved myself a few headaches as well. One thing I have made sure is it doesn8217;t take away from celebrations. I8217;ve got to make sure I don8217;t isolate myself and be involved and have fun, which I always do,8221; he said. 8220;But when I wake up in the morning and a few blokes are a bit dusty, I am fresh as a daisy,8221; he says.

Alcohol isn8217;t the only thing he has stayed away from. Once a gym fanatic, weights are out of bounds now. 8220;I haven8217;t touched weights in 13 months. I have gone from more of rugby league player8217;s programme and build to being a lot leaner. I don8217;t have the big muscle bulk and I feel so much better for it. It8217;s a big puzzle to make sure everything is aligned, but I love doing it because I have learned so much more about my body, and also it is exciting to be able to understand where I am at. If they told me to bang my head against a wall a hundred times, I would do it.

8220;In the end, for what I was trying to do, it probably wasn8217;t the greatest structure. Now I have found it and it is working.8221;