Warne disavows Buchanan comment

Australia’s champion leg-spinner Shane Warne has vehemently denied that he meant to criticize the national team’s coach John Buchanan at a press conference on Thursday, and has said that he is “shocked” at how his comments had been taken out of context.

Warne was quoted as saying, in the press conference, that Buchanan hardly deserves any credit for Australia’s mammoth success over the last few years, and that according to him, the team needed more of a manager than a coach. This was followed by gainsaying against the leg-spinner, who is currently in England, from both the captain Ricky Ponting, and the coach himself.

According to reports, Warne called up Buchanan on Friday at the Australian team’s hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where they are playing the DFL Cup, to try to explain that he didn’t mean to say what he was quoted as. A Cricket Australia official, who was also connected to the phone call, later said, “Shane said he was shocked at the way he said his comments had been taken out of context. He explained that the report did not represent his views. He said he is very committed to team solidarity. It was an amicable call and the team now moves on.”

Warne has reportedly had some minor altercations with Buchanan in the past, the last of which probably came after a comment he made last month that Australia’s next coach (Buchanan is leaving after next year’s World Cup) should be a more experienced ex-player as compared to the Queenslander, who had only a few state-level matches to show for his record.