Shane Warne has no time for his former captain Steve Waugh, saying he’s the most “selfish cricketer I’ve played with”. The former leg spinner has used his time on the television show, I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!, to tell the nation he dislikes Waugh for a number of reasons, but there is one in particular.
Warne said the manner in which Waugh, his then captain, told him he had been dropped from the Test team during a tour of the West Indies in 1999 is still vivid in his memory.
“There’s a lot of reasons I don’t like Steve Waugh, a lot of reasons, because he is the most selfish cricketer I’ve played with,” Warne says on Tuesday’s episode of the Network Ten reality show.
“One thing that really annoyed me about him was the one Test I got dropped, in the West Indies, was we had to win the last Test match to win the [Frank Worrell] Trophy.
“At that stage, captain, vice-captain [Warne], coach [Geoff Marsh] used to pick the team. We went to selection. I hadn’t bowled well, we had lost – Brian Lara batted unreal – but I was being the scapegoat, because I didn’t bowl well it was my fault.”
When it came to discussing the ins and outs for the next Test, there was no discussion. Warne said Waugh was blunt.
“We got to the selection table and said ‘What’s everyone’s thoughts?’. Steve Waugh said ‘You’re not playing’. I went ‘What? Hang on. What do you think the team should be? Blah blah blah’, and Steve Waugh said ‘Nuh, I’m the captain of this side ... you’re not playing’.
“I was really disappointed with that after 10 years. I’d just had a shoulder op. I thought the situation ... would’ve brought the best out in me too.”
Warne may have opened up an old wound but he cleared the air about a baked beans story that has been doing the rounds for some 18 years. He told the story how the Australian cricket team received 1,900 cans of baked beans while they were on a tour of India in 1998 after a request from their coach Geoff Marsh.
The only problem was they were specifically addressed to Warne and he said he has had to live with the myth that all the baked beans were for him.
“He rang Cricket Australia, Cricket Australia then rang the company and said, ‘hey look the Australian boys needs some baked beans and spaghetti to put on their toast in the mornings’,” he said. “We got three tonnes each ... addressed ‘Shane Warne, India’... so everyone thought I was desperate for baked beans, so it just stuck for the last 20 years.”
