Aussies on beer ban during Ashes, says Harris

CRICKET: SYDNEY, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Australia's players were told not to drink alcohol during the recent Ashes series for fear they would become more susceptible to injury, according to fast bowler Ryan Harris.

A few beers in the dressing room after the day's play has long been a tradition in Australian cricket but Harris said the attitude towards alcohol had now changed.

"Drinking now is seen as not great," Harris, who coincidentally suffered a stress fracture in his ankle during the series and was ruled out for up to four months, told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

"Guys are basically told not to drink. Heading into the Ashes it was said to them, 'If you drink you put yourself at risk of injury and missing out'. When I came back into the one-day squad last year we were banned from drinking." The Australia cricket team is sponsored by a brewery and local folklore has it that test opener David Boon, now a selector, drank 52 cans of beer on a flight from Sydney to London in 1989. Boon has never confirmed the story.

Another tradition for Ashes tours was that the England and Australian teams would visit each other's dressing rooms for a drink. That had also come to an end.

"It was all pretty serious, to be honest," he said. "When I was there we didn't go into their dressing room and they didn't go into ours".