After four consecutive defeats in a week, Australian cricketers have started seeing ghosts.

All-rounder Shane Watson was so scared at the prospect of spending the night in the Lumley Castle hotel in Chester-le-Street, where the Australians are staying before Thursday's NatWest series game against England [Images], that he moved to his team-mate Brett Lee's [Images] room, according to a newspaper report.

"I saw ghosts. I swear I'm telling the truth. I closed the blind in my room before I went to bed. But when I was awoken at 4 am by my phone the blind was open again.

"I looked out the window and saw a procession of white people walking past. It was amazing, very scary. I know I wasn't dreaming because I wrote down the message from my phone and the time. Certainly, when I started to tell my story a lot of them didn't want to know the details," Watson said.

The hotel, said to be haunted by the ghost of a 14th century aristocrat murdered by Catholic priests, also spooked the West Indies [Images] cricketers when they stayed there five years ago. Three of them had moved out then, a report in today's The Guardian  said. The Australian squad's media relations officer said:

"Several of the players were uneasy, although a lot of them in the morning said they were fine. But maybe they were just trying to be brave."