Warne and Waugh take the helm for one-dayers (7 January 1999)

7 January 1999

Warne and Waugh take the helm for one-dayers

By Charles Randall

AUSTRALIA'S cricket authorities have added fuel to the bookmaker controversy involving Shane Warne and Mark Waugh by making Warne captain for the forthcoming one-day match against England, with Waugh as his vice-captain.

The Australian Cricket Board have defied their sternest critics, particularly those in their national media who raised a storm of disapproval when the cover-up was exposed a month ago.

Warne and Waugh have not escaped criticism, but their appointment confirmed publicly that the Board had wiped the slate clean for two senior players fined heavily four years ago for accepting money from an illegal bookmaker in Sri Lanka in 1994.

Steve Waugh, Mark's twin and Australia's captain for the World Cup, is due to resume the leadership when his hamstring injury clears up, giving Warne at least two games in charge.

Outrage greeted the revelations that the board had decided to cover up the affair after extracting fines in secrecy from Warne (£2,000) and Waugh (£2,400). The players' acceptance of money from a Delhi bookmaker for giving reasonably mundane information was regarded by the board as "naive and foolish in the extreme".

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said after last month's disclosures that cricket being knocked off its pedestal was "deeply disturbing", and sports minister Jackie Kelly felt the episode had led to "significant disillusionment with two Aussie icons".

The "icons" are back with a vengeance. Warne leads Australia against England at Brisbane on Sunday in the opening match of the five-week triangular series with Sri Lanka, and his appointment suggests that he is still being groomed as successor to Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, as Taylor himself hoped he would be.

The involvement of Warne and Waugh in dealings with bookmakers came to the board's attention after their claims that they had been approached by Salim Malik to influence the result of a one-day game against Pakistan. The proposed payment, according to Waugh, was in excess of £120,000, but Malik has denied all accusations.

Warne, Mark Waugh and the former Australian team manager Alan Crompton are due to give evidence, or at least clarification, to lawyers in Melbourne for the Pakistan cricket corruption inquiry, but December's revelations could be seen to have tainted their credibility.

Warne said: "The most disappointing thing over the last couple of weeks is people have linked the two things together - the match-fixing and Mark and I taking money from a bookmaker.

"Maybe the bookmaker was linked to what happened in Pakistan, but I think the two issues are separate. There are a lot of things which I think the public needs to know, about how it happened, and they might be a little more sympathetic once they know."

Waugh testified to the inquiry in Lahore last October during Australia's tour of Pakistan, but he did not divulge his links then with the bookmaker.

Warne, Victoria's captain, who led Australia in a one-dayer against New Zealand last year when Steve Waugh was injured, was an obvious choice to take over. With 96 one-day international appearances, he was one of the most experienced members of the 14-man squad announced yesterday.

Australia squad: *S R Waugh, D R Martyn, -A C Gilchrist, M E Waugh, M G Bevan, G S Blewett, D S Lehmann, R T Ponting, A C Dale, B E Young, B P Julian, S K Warne, D W Fleming, G D McGrath.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)