The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Neither friends nor enemies

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Thursday, Dec 27, 2007
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Neither friends nor enemies

— Photo: AP

Shane Warne.

Melbourne: The war of words between Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist has reached a flashpoint with the spin legend admitting that he is not on best terms with his former teammate.

Though Warne admitted of the difference between the two, he said he had nothing personal against Gilchrist.

“Gilly is one of those nice people who is everyone’s friend. I suppose I am a bit of a rebel and speak my mind and do not sit on the fence, so we did not always see eye to eye.”

“To some that means we hate each other. Rubbish. Lots of us in the team at some stage or another did not always see eye to eye or agree, but you should always communicate and talk it through, which happens most of the time,” Warne added, as he sought to clear the air on the much-talked about relationship.

Warne revealed that he sledged Gilchrist a number of times during their playing days but said the stumper never objected to the banter.

The legendary spinner also sought to set the record straight on the reported differences between the two after Gilchrist was handed the vice-captaincy from Warne.

“Yes, Gilly took over as vice-captain. We spoke about it at the time, and standing at first slip next to him we spoke about lots of stuff. Again, no issue,” Warne wrote in his column for Daily Telegraph.

The flamboyant spinner said he never meant to belittle Gilchrist by giving him a rather low place in his list of top-50 cricketers. “I ranked Gilly in my top 50 as the second-best wicketkeeper behind Ian Healy, out of all the people I played with and against, so it’s not right to say I did not rate him,” Warne clarified. He maintained that Michael Clarke should be promoted as vice-captain as Gilchrist needs to be freed of the responsibility in order to prolong his Test career. — PTI

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