Oz players were told not to drink beer during Ashes

Australian fast bowler Ryan Harris has revealed that players were asked not to drink alcohol during the Ashes.

"Drinking now is seen as not great. 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," Harris said at a Queensland Bulls function yesterday.

When asked whether the two Ashes teams mixed much, Harris said: "It was all pretty serious, to be honest."

"When I was there we didn't go into their dressing room and they didn't go into ours. I was a little bit surprised we didn't go in for a beer but it was a very big series and they were very serious," News.com.au quoted him, as saying.

"They may have been told not to talk to us. A couple of times when I was bowling I tried to talk to them and they wouldn't," Harris said.

Former Test fast bowler Jason Gillespie, who said that when he started his career the beer was put on ice, now it's the players, summed up the change in the custom of drinking beer in dressing room.

Matt Hayden, who played in the semi-professional era where dressing room drinks were encouraged and the more sober, serious era which followed it, recently declared the game would do well to chill out a bit and a moderate approach between the two extremes would serve players well.