Shane Warne reignites fued with "selfish" Steve Waugh

Publish Date
Monday, 18 May 2020, 5:33PM
Getty Images

Getty Images

Cricket great Shane Warne has reignited his feud with Steve Waugh, once again calling his former captain the "most selfish cricketer" he ever played with.

A study from ESPNcricinfo's statisticians found Waugh was involved in more run-outs than any other player in the history of international cricket. During 493 Tests and ODI matches, the batsman was a part of 104 run outs throughout his 19-year career.

In comparison, Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, who played 664 international matches, was only involved in 98 run-outs.

However, what cricket fans found most interesting from ESPNcricinfo's study was how regularly Waugh's partners fell victim to errors between the wicket. Of the 104 run outs, Waugh's teammate was dismissed on 73 occasions, approximately 70% of the time.

Waugh has run out more partners than any other cricketer in history, comfortably ahead of second-best Shivnarine Chanderpaul with 56.

Twitter champion Rob Moody then created a compilation of Waugh's dismissals.

Warne took an immediate interest in the montage, and couldn't help pointing out the selfishness of his former teammate and captain.

"Wow! So Waugh was involved in the most ever run outs in Test cricket (104) and ran his partner out 73 times – is that correct? Mmmmmmmmm," Warne posted to Twitter.

"For the record again and I've said this 1000 times – I do not hate S Waugh at all. FYI, I picked him in my all time best Australian team recently.

"Steve was easily the most selfish cricketer that I ever played with and this stat …"

Warne's rivalry with Waugh has dragged on for several decades. The former Australia skipper dropped the leg spinner from the Test side during the 1999 tour of the West Indies, which Warne recounted in his 2018 autobiography.

"Disappointed is not a strong enough word," Warne wrote.

"I lost a bit of respect for him after that. I believe he should have backed me – as I always believe the art of captaincy is to support your players and back them every time. This gains the respect from the players and makes them play for you. He didn't, it's history, but I never found it easy with him after that."

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission

 

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