Ponting asks Warne to explain Buchanan remarks by CricketArchive staff reporter

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Player:

RT Ponting, SK Warne

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DateLine: 16th September 2006

 

Australian captain Ricky Ponting has asked 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. "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. 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."

 

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. 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."

 

Warne no longer plays one-day cricket for Australia but remains a key fixture of their Test team.

 

During Buchanan's seven-year reign, Australia has gained outstanding success, winning 24 Test series, drawing one and losing two -- in India in 2000-01 and last year's Ashes series in England. He has had a 75 percent success rate in Test cricket from 85 Tests, and 74 percent from 182 one-day internationals.