Warner defends presence of wives during Ashes

Opening batsman David Warner has dismissed suggestions that the presence of wives and girlfriends of Australian cricketers led to their poor performance in the ongoing Ashes series.

The visitors were comprehensively outplayed by England and currently trail the five-Test series 1-3. Their poor performance has led to a wave of criticism with some pundits including former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy asserting that the presence of partners on tour was a distraction.

Warner, however, feels that the presence of his wife Candice and daughter Ivy Mae helped him to perform better.

"I love having my family on tour. Everyone out there knows that when you go to work on a day-to-day basis, when you come home to your family, it's a great thing and that always keeps me smiling," the 28-year-old was quoted as saying by telegraph.co.uk on Tuesday.

"The other day we had a bad day. We went in the change rooms, we all spoke about it, we got over it, came home and we have our families here and we're all down together playing with our kids in the foyer. It's fantastic to have them along."

Warner said the conglomerate of Australian players and their families was no different to any other functional working environment where people aren't necessarily best mates, but strive to work towards a common goal.

"Not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye on a long tour. There's going to be the odd hiccup here and there but you just deal with it. That's what happens in the work environment," he said.

"You've just got to work out a way to make sure that does not disrupt anything going forward. And in our camp at the moment there's nothing there that's been disruptive."