Waugh was more of a match saver than match-winner: Warne

Legendary Australian spinner Shane Warne believes former skipper Steve Waugh, counted among one of the most successful captains, was more of a match-saver than a match-winner when it came to Test cricket.

“Steve was more of a match saver than a match-winner,” Warner said about Waugh whom he included in his all-time Australian Test XI to be led by Allan Border.

Waugh played 168 Tests for Australia in which he scored 10927 runs, including 32 centuries and 50 fifties. Announcing his team on Instagram Live, Warne further said: “I am only picking players that I played with that is why David Warner is not going to be a part of the side, he is one of the greatest Australian opener.”

Matthew Hayden and Michael Slater were picked as openers, followed by Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Border and Steve. Adam Gilchrist was chosen to don the wicketkeeping gloves.

Warne went with Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Bruce Reid, and Tim May as the fast bowlers. Merv Hughes was named as 12th man. Meanwhile, former Australia skipper Michael Clarke has revealed that the team he led to the World Cup win in 2015 had a lot of egos in it, but he just asked the youngsters go out and express themselves and that led to them finally lifting the cup at home.

“My message throughout the whole tournament was ‘play with freedom’,” Clarke said.

“The thing about the squad we picked is we had so many superstars who wanted to be on the big stage. There was a lot of big egos on the team and they wanted the bigger game, bigger crowd, bigger moment. For me it was about our training and preparation being so important because then all I wanted to do was allow these x-factor players – Faulkner, Maxwell, Warner, Starc, Smith – these superstars to get on stage and show the world how good they are, and that’s what happened.

"Those young x-factor players won us that World Cup because they wanted to shine on the big stage, but they did the hard work to allow them to shine on the big stage. Us older farts, we just sat back and clapped. They were unbelievable, brilliant.”

Agencies