London, July 13 (Inditop.com) Legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne feels that the Australian team is no longer in a state of transition and young players have stamped their own style in the first drawn Ashes Test at Cardiff.
“The Australia team are no longer in transition. They really gelled on the way to beating South Africa in South Africa, a great win. If people underestimated Australia this time last week, they won’t be today. They are stamping their own style, or brand, on the way they play,” Warne wrote in his columns in The Times, London.
Australia found themselves on threshold of winning the first Ashes Test at Cardiff before the last pair of James Anderson and Monty Panesar saved the match for England.
“I guess England may get a lot of praise in a few quarters for batting out all those overs to save the game. But that shouldn’t hide the big picture. Australia may be disappointed at not taking the last wicket they needed to complete the job, but they were the better side for most of the five days,” Warne added.
Warne went on to add that Australia will take lot of positives from the drawn Test.
“Australia will take a lot of positives. Brad Haddin showed that he is good enough to be a specialist batsman – not as destructive as Adam Gilchrist but still a very good player and probably better behind the stumps. You saw Marcus North and Michael Clarke playing spin really well; there could have been five hundreds in the innings,” he said.
“The latest result needs to be put into context. Despite losing the toss Australia got into a winning position and if time had not been lost to rain on Saturday afternoon, when they were flying in the field after taking two early wickets, I’m sure they would have gone on to win.”
rounak