Australian captain Ricky Ponting has told Shane Warne to call him and explain after he reportedly launched a stinging attack on national team coach John Buchanan.
The legendary leg-spinner was quoted in British tabloid the Sun as saying Buchanan deserved few plaudits for Australia's world cricket domination, and suggested the team didn't need a coach at all.
"He has been our coach during a successful era but that begs a question -- does the coach make the team or does the team make the coach?" asked Warne, who has had a strained relationship with Buchanan previously.
PHOTO: AFP
"I'm a big believer that the coach is something you travel in to get to and from the game. You need some sort of team manager, more than a coach, like we have at Hampshire with Paul Terry, where the captain runs the team and the manager sorts out everything else," Warne said.
"International players know how to play. You don't need a coach getting too technical. You can forget that you just need to bowl the ball," he said.
Ponting, in Kuala Lumpur for a tri-series with India and the West Indies, said he has been trying to reach Warne for an explanation.
"I've tried to make contact with Shane this morning ... both myself and John have left voice messages on his phone to have a chat with him and try and work out if he actually did say some of the things that were mentioned," he said.
"One thing I do know about last time I spoke with Shane was that he was all about team solidarity and he was looking forward to the team being a very solid group going forward. I'll just have to wait till later today and hopefully be able to have a really good conversation with him over the phone," Ponting said.
"Shane has had his own views about that sort of stuff for quite a while. It's not ideal that it's out there and that's why it is important that we get to the bottom of it and see if he actually has come out and said those things," he said.
Warne no longer plays one-day cricket for Australia but remains a key fixture of their Test team.
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
Italian defender Marco Curto has been banned for 10 matches for racially abusing South Korean forward Hwang Hee-chan while playing for Como 1907 against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a pre-season friendly in July. Curto, who is on loan from Como to Serie B club Cesena, would serve half of the punishment immediately with the other half suspended for two years. “The player Marco Curto was found responsible for discriminatory behavior and sanctioned with a 10-match suspension,” a FIFA spokesperson said. “The player is ordered to render community services and undergo training and education with an organization approved by FIFA.” Wolves said the club would
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
RSS