Shane Warne says he would consider an Ashes return

December 5, 2012
Shane_Warne

Sydney, December 5: Australian great Shane Warne said he would consider coming out of retirement to play in next year’s Ashes series against England if asked by national team captain Michael Clarke, but Warne later tweeted that the suggestion might have been taken out of context.

The 43-year-old leg-spinner, who retired in 2007 after taking 708 test wickets, including 195 in Ashes tests, said he is happily retired but would consider a comeback if his country needed him. Warne is still bowling in Australia’s domestic Twenty20 league with his Melbourne Stars.

“If your best friend says, ‘Mate, I want you to seriously consider making a commitment to Australian cricket and coming back out of retirement’,” Warne said he might do so.

“I really felt for Michael Clarke from a captaincy point of view,” Warne said. “When you’ve got international bowlers bowling one or two full-tosses an over and half-volleys, I felt for Pup (Clarke). I really felt for him.”

On Wednesday, Warne indicated via his Twitter account that a realistic test comeback was unlikely.

“Clarification guys & thankyou for the kind words, but... I was asked ‘could’ I play not ‘would’ I play..yes, I could..didn’t say I would !” Warne tweeted.

In a later tweet, Warne apologised to Clarke.

“It was a hypothetical question re if Michael Clarke asked me... Read my quotes “I’m not asking Michael to ask me” Hope I didn’t disappoint!”

“Sorry MClarke23 if you woke up to calls! See you soon buddy....”

Warne, who plays Twenty20 cricket in Australia and overseas, believes he is bowling as well as at any stage of his career and could still excel at test level.

“If you asked me, ‘Can I come out and play a test match tomorrow?’ I’d have absolutely no doubt I could rip them out of the rough and turn them square, all that sort of stuff,” he said. “But playing international cricket is a huge commitment.

“Playing Twenty20 is a different commitment. You’re only bowling 24 deliveries, sometimes you might only bowl eight, sometimes 12. It depends on what the game needs. You don’t have to be prepared as you do for a test match, to bowl 60 overs in a match. That would test my fitness if I ever had to do that again, which is highly unlikely.

“People say, ‘You’re bowling that well, why don’t you play for Australia again?’ I say if I’ve got a test match in two weeks’ time, I have absolutely no doubt that I could come out and rip ‘em and be effective and do pretty well, but that’s a commitment to Australian cricket again.”

In a poll in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday, 70 percent of 5,500 respondents said they felt Clarke should ask Warne to return to the test team.



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Agencies
March 3,2020

Mumbai, Mar 3: India on Tuesday retained their number one spot and captain Virat Kohli remained static at second in the ICC rankings despite a dismal Test series against New Zealand.

India have 116 rating points, six more than New Zealand with third-placed Australia accumulating 108 points. The 0-2 result against New Zealand was India's first series loss in the World Test Championship.

Kohli remains in second position in the batting rankings despite a forgettable Test series in which he made 38 runs in four innings, the ICC said in a statement.

New Zealand opener Tom Blundell and his Indian counterpart Prithvi Shaw and debutant paceman Kyle Jamieson were among the biggest movers in the rankings, released on Tuesday.

Blundell had a successful series against India, scoring 117 runs in four innings, with one half-century, which put him among the top two run-scorers in the series.

The performance meant he was rewarded with a jump of 27 places to No. 46. Shaw, who returned for his first series since his Test debut against West Indies in 2018, and made a punchy 54 in the first innings of the Christchurch Test, rose 17 places to No.76.

Australia's Steve Smith retained his top spot, holding a 25-point advantage over Kohli. Smith's apprentice Marnus Labuschagne jumped one spot to round off the top three, taking the place of New Zealand captain Kane Williamson.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes and India opener Mayank Agarwal moved a spot each and swapped places to break into and fall out of the top 10 respectively.

Among bowlers, Tim Southee's Player of the Series winning performance against India took him into the top five, with a jump of two places to No.4, while Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult returned to the top 10, gaining four places each to occupy the seventh and ninth positions respectively.

But the biggest gainer was Jamieson, who rose from No. 80 to 43.

There was only one change in the top ten among all-rounders, with Southee dropping a spot to No.10 and team-mate Neil Wagner falling out of the top 10 with a drop of four spots.

As with the bowling rankings, Jamieson, who frustrated India with handy lower order runs, gained big on the all-rounders' table, rising 26 places to No. 22.

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Agencies
January 11,2020

London, Jan 11: Former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's famous lap around the Wankhede Stadium after the World Cup 2011 win has been nominated in Laureas's list for the most inspiring sporting event in the last twenty years.

The moment featuring Tendulkar has been described as "Carried on the shoulders by a nation".

On his sixth attempt at the World Cup and with India not having won the competition since 1983, Tendulkar finally became a part of the team that lifted the coveted trophy. Carried on the shoulders of the Indian team, he made a lap of honour, shedding tears of joy after the victory was sealed in his home city.

The 2011 World Cup was also the first time, in which a host nation ended up winning the trophy.

Apart from Tendulkar, England's Andrew Flintoff is the only other cricketer to feature in the list. In 2005, England managed to defeat Australia in an Ashes Test, but Flintoff chose to first shake hands with Brett Lee rather than celebrate with his side.

Matthias Steiner (weightlifting), Natalie du Toit (swimming), Sky Brown (skateboarding), Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee (triathlon), Xia Boyu (mountaineering) have been nominated in the list.

Female tennis stars also feature in the list for coming up with an equal play, equal pay campaign. After pressure from Venus Williams and others, Wimbledon announced that female tennis players would receive prize money equal to the men's.

German international footballer Miroslav Klose was playing for Lazio in Italy's Serie A in 2012 against Napoli when he rose for a ball in the early moments of the game.

The ball came spiraling off his hand and skirted into the back of the net and a goal was awarded. While most players would carry on as if nothing had happened, Klose was honest with the referee and admitted that he handled the ball.

As a result, he also finds a place on the list.

The Laureus Sporting Moment Award celebrates the moments where the sport has unified people in the most extraordinary way.

This campaign has shortlisted 20 sporting stories from the last 20 years that have left their mark on the world.

The winner will be decided on the basis of public voting. It has already started, and the final date to cast the vote is February 16.

Finally, the result will be declared on February 17.
With three knock-out rounds, the top-20 moments will be whittled down to ten then five, with the top-five moments going head-to-head.

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Agencies
June 6,2020

Malappuram, Jun 6: One more COVID-19 death was reported in Kerala on Saturday taking the toll in the State to 15.

The 61-year-old deceased, Hamsa Koya, a former footballer who represented Maharashtra in Santosh Trophy, had returned from Mumbai with his family on May 21.

Koya was undergoing treatment at Manjeri Medical College in Malappuram. The medical bulletin issued said that he was suffering from pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

On June 5, as his health deteriorated, he was administered plasma therapy on the advice of the state medical board. However, he did not respond to medicines and breathed his last at 6:30 am on Saturday.

The medical bulletin said that his family members including his wife, son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren of 3 years and a 3 month-old child also had tested COVID-19 positive and were earlier shifted to hospital for treatment.

With this, the total death toll in Kerala has reached 15. 

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