"He is talented, very talented, but he has no brains" Geoffrey Boycott is at it again. Virender Sehwag is the target this time after he recklessly pulled a catch to deep square in India's first innings at the SSC Jul 25, 2008
Robert “Crash” Craddock writes about Shane Warne’s list, and about Warne’s animosity towards Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist.
But underneath it all there is a fascinating, essentially untold story about how two superstars of the modern game somehow managed to survive and thrive year after year in the same side despite a fallout which left each man cold.
Waugh will never expand on the details because he could not be bothered starting a bushfire from which no one could win.
Warne’s definition of Gilchrist as “still a batsman-keeper rather than the other way around” is not flattering (even given Gilchrist’s freakish batting skills) and one which Gilchrist would not enjoy.
You can call Gilchrist a madhouse slogger and he will laugh along with you but dismissiveness of his keeping skills hurts him because he sees himself as a keeper first.
…..In a perverse sort of way, Warne’s modest rating of Steve Waugh and Gilchrist gives us a hint of why Australian teams have been so successful over the past decade – they simply put the personal stuff to one side and go out and play for the team.
It sounds easy to do but it has been beyond many fragmented England, West Indian, Indian and Pakistan teams of the same era.
Warne and Waugh might not have been each other’s cup of tea but you would never have known it on the field.
The ability of Australia’s players to put their personal stuff to one side and play for the team is undoubtedly a big part of Australia’s success. I don’t know, but I suspect that New Zealand are also good at doing this, which is why they are able to punch above their weight in international cricket.
Scott, you don’t think this Warne thing has been done to death already? I know yours is a tangential topic, but I’m not sure if it really goes anywhere, since the Aussie ability to work together probably comes as much from an innately laid-back disposition ( Kiwis have it, too) as having a level playing field to start with.
Warne and Waugh may not like each other, but it’s not a passionate issue with them, more a dismissive one (not sure that’s the right word). Perhaps it’s just that Indians, Pakistanis, South Africans, even the English, feel more strongly about things than Australians, so they don’t always get along so easily.
Or maybe seething mutual animosity and individual competitiveness actually drove them on to greater and greater things. It worked for Lennon and McCartney…
People say Aussies (and indeed Kiwis) are more laid back and putting off-field friction behind them is easier.
I disagree. While this certainly is a laid back part of the world, I think it’s a tribute to Steve Waugh as a leader that a mentality of professinalism, team unitiy and celebration of yours and others successes, was built and fostered.
I am the biggest of Steve Waugh fans but I can conceed, it is possible to see from the outside he could be “hard to work with”.
I have worked in both Australia and NZ, and seen so called professional environments crippled by petty politics and disputes. Not so laid back then…
So I say, all the more credit to Waugh, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath and whoever else may not have seen completely eye to eye, for maintaining a tight knit team of professionals that continued to perform at their best to the very end of their careers.
Think back to some of the scandals that could’ve bought a lesser team undone.
Let’s hope Ricky Ponting is as strong a leader going into the next era…
I would think its more down to a desire to be the best at what they did, that allowed them to put aside their differences on the field. You can look at any team, there are sure to be guys (or girls) there that won’t like each other. The team that will do the best is the one who can get on with the job at hand.
The other advantage that NZ have is that they don’t have the big stars that have over-inflated egos, which makes the performances of Waugh’s team even more unbelievable.
It’ll be a long time until we see this sort of cohesiveness in an Indian or Paki team, but it must be said that we may have seen the first signs of it during India’s Test series win over England.
Indians (and I suspect Pakistanis, and maybe West Indians as well) are so diverse - a South Indian, at quite a few levels has as much in common with a North Indian as with perhaps an Aussie/Englishman. This difference (in outlook, work ethic, values-like respect to seniors, educational level, fighting spirit, physical ability) translates to mini-teams within the team. In the absence of a strong leader, these differences may become too wide to bridge, and the team suffers. Australian teams atleast do not have this issue to grapple with, methinks.
Stu, I stand by my comment on Australians being laidback - it doesn’t preclude us from being ruthless and professional at the same time, qualities that abound in the Australian cricketers, including Waugh. The definition of “laid-back” is “relaxed and easygoing”. Remember, Australia is the country whose PM came into power and popularity on the back of “relaxed and comfortable”, and we were very happy to agree with him.
There’s a little bit of chicken and the egg, no? Did their success come from shelving differences or did continued success make it easy for them all to get along? Had they not been a team laden with heroes, these cracks might have widened.
Clive Lloyd is also lauded for gelling the diverse islands of the Caribbean during their glory years, but it must have helped that they were all so darned good.
It’s not exactly medal-worthy that Warne was prepared to play cricket alongside legends like Waugh or Gilchrist, or vice versa.
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