We just sat back and clapped: Clarke on youngsters in 2015 WC

Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke has revealed that the team he led to the World Cup win in 2015 had a lot of egos in it, but he just asked the youngsters go out and express themselves and that led to them finally lifting the cup at home.

"My message throughout the whole tournament was 'play with freedom'," Clarke told cricket.com.au.

"The thing about the squad we picked is we had so many superstars who wanted to be on the big stage. There was a lot of big egos on the team and they wanted the bigger game, bigger crowd, bigger moment.

"For me it was about our training and preparation being so important because then all I wanted to do was allow these x-factor players – Faulkner, Maxwell, Warner, Starc, Smith – these superstars to get on stage and show the world how good they are, and that's what happened.

"Those young x-factor players won us that World Cup because they wanted to shine on the big stage, but they did the hard work to allow them to shine on the big stage. Us older farts, we just sat back and clapped. They were unbelievable, brilliant."

The final turned out to be Clarke's last game in an ODI for Australia and it was only poetic justice that he ended with the cup in hand.