Former Test batsman Dean Jones believes Shane Warne could be tempted out of retirement by the prospect of leading the Australian team, claiming he would do it “in a heartbeat”.
Jones, speculating on possible successors to skipper Ricky Ponting following his second Ashes series loss as captain in England, said 39-year-old Warne could be tempted to take over before handing on to current vice-captain Michael Clarke.
Warne’s colourful private life effectively denied him what chance he had of captaining Australia during his brilliant Test career, but Jones claimed it was still an option that would be considered.
“Ask Shane Warne to come out of retirement just for two years, then give it to Michael Clarke,” Jones told the BBC.
“A lot of people might be thinking ‘that’s stupid’ but it will take him two months, three months to get himself fit, just let him play the Test matches and, I tell you what, he would do it in a heartbeat.
“I don’t think they’ll do that, I don’t think they’ll go that far but it’ll be an option, I tell you, that’ll be looked at.”
Warne, the first bowler to take 700 Test wickets, revitalised Hampshire during his spell as captain of the English county earlier this decade and led Rajasthan Royals to victory in the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament in 2008.
However, chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch has been emphatic in saying the Warne era is over.
“I really think we’re getting past the stage of talking about Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist because that’s gone,” he said on Monday.
“It was a great era but now we’re moving into a new era.”
And former captain Ian Chappell has joined Hilditch and Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland in throwing support behind Ponting.
Chappell, captain of the successful Australia side of the early to mid 1970s, said Ponting had paid dearly for being in charge when the likes of star players Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer had all retired from Test cricket.
Those five though were all involved when Australia, under Ponting’s leadership, lost the 2005 Ashes in England, also by a 2-1 margin, before they each featured in the subsequent 5-0 triumph in Australia in 2006/07.
No member of the Australian attack that played in this Ashes series had any previous experience of playing Test cricket in England.
But Chappell said Ponting could be faulted for rushing through the closing overs of the drawn first Test in Cardiff, where last-wicket duo James Anderson and Monty Panesar clung on for the final 69 balls to deny Australia victory.
“Overall I thought he did a pretty fair job as a captain,” Chappell told the Cricinfo website.
“And when you consider the turnover of very good players that he has had under his captaincy – no other Australian captain has had to cope with that.”
Chappell, who enjoyed series wins over England in 1974/75 and 1975, added: “Now is not the right time to sack Ponting as captain.
“For starters, if you sack him you will probably lose your best batsman because I don’t think he would want to continue if he was sacked as captain. But the most important thing is I don’t believe that he deserves to be sacked as captain, he’s still the best man for the job.”
However, turning to the first Test, Chappell said: “There I guess you could perhaps query Ricky Ponting’s choice of bowlers at the end. I think he went for quantity of overs rather than quality of overs and that was a mistake.”
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