Steve Waugh responds to the 'selfish' allegations hurled on him by Shane Warne

In his recently released autobiography, ‘No Spin’, Shane Warne has spilled quite a few beans. There were a lot of allegations that were made as he told stories unknown to many. However, the most prominent of them all was the Steve Waugh episode. The leg-spinner made some serious accusations on his former skipper. He said that Waugh was the most ‘selfish player’ he ever came across.

After a long time, Waugh has responded to this criticism. He said that he “didn’t need to justify anything” he did as a captain. The feud between the two sparked off when Warne was dropped from the side during the Windies tour in 1999. When asked about the controversial decision, Waugh said that he had to take the decision as the leader and the captain of the side. He added that although he didn’t want to drop the leggie, he had to do it for the benefit of the team.

Steve Waugh says dropping Warne was only for the teams’ benefit

“I’m responding [to Warne] by not responding because I don’t think it needs a response,” Steve Waugh said while speaking to ABC’s News Breakfast.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t want to make that decision but I did it for the benefit of the team. You’ve got to have loyalty to a certain degree but you can’t have blind loyalty. I guess that’s what Shane expected on that occasion, I had to make a decision. I got on fine with Shane we had a great relationship. As a leader, you’re put in a tough position sometimes but that’s why you’re a leader,” he added.

In that series, Warne averaged 134 in the first three Tests. He was being smashed all around by Brian Lara and managed to pick only two wickets. The series was levelled 1-1 before he was dropped in the fourth Test.

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