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| March 16, 2003 | Sunday | Muharram 12, 1424 |
Steve Waugh available for Windies tour
BRISBANE, March 15: Australia’s Test captain Steve Waugh has ended two months of intense speculation about his playing future by making himself available for the forthcoming tour of the West Indies.
The 37-year-old said he was motivated to continue playing Test cricket next month and felt he would be cheating himself if he retired after his dramatic century in the fifth Test of the Ashes series which Australia won 4-1 in January.
“I thought about that — the perfect way to go out — but I don’t see why there can’t be another good finish somewhere down the track,” Waugh told a news conference on Saturday.
Australia’s selectors will choose the West Indies tour squad on Sunday and are expected to announce the 15-man party on Monday.
Waugh told chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns on Saturday he was available to play.
“I feel as if I’m playing really well and if I retired now I think I would be selling myself short,” Waugh said.
“The last 24 to 48 hours I’ve weighed up the pros and cons and there were more positives than negatives and I decided I really wanted to continue.”
Waugh’s most recent Test was against England in Sydney in January when he made 102. Waugh punched a boundary from the last ball of the second day’s play to equal Don Bradman’s national record of 29 Test hundreds, behind only former India captains Sunil Gavaskar (34) and Sachin Tendulkar (31).
Waugh, who has played 156 Tests, a world record he shares with fellow Australian Allan Border, had refused since early January to make clear if he was available for the Caribbean tour which begins at the end of this month.
The 1999 World Cup-winning skipper was dropped from the national one-day side a year ago and could not win a place in the squad for Australia’s World Cup defence in southern Africa.
His recent form has been outstanding. In first-class cricket in Australia this season, not including the championship final, he had scored 899 runs at an average of 47.31. Only Martin Love has bettered Waugh’s aggregate with 1,105 runs in one more match.
Waugh became Test captain in the Caribbean in early 1999 after Mark Taylor retired. Later that year Australia started a world record run of 16 successive Test wins spanning almost two years before the side lost a series 2-1 in India.
He said he cared little for the chance to break Border’s world record of 156 matches.
“If you play for long enough you’re going to get records and that didn’t motivate me to continue on,” he said.
“It’s probably my favourite place to play. It was my first tour there as captain four years ago and we drew that series so there was something to achieve there.”
Waugh’s decision to make himself available for the West Indies tour was applauded by Test captain-in-waiting Ricky Ponting.
Ponting had said he expected Waugh to keep playing because “he’s probably the best batsman in the country at the moment” and was far from surprised by Waugh’s decision.
“I think it’s great that Stephen has decided to play on,” Ponting said in South Africa on Saturday.
“At the end of the Australian summer, the players were adamant that he should keep going, particularly with the way that he finished off the Ashes.
“Since we’ve been overseas we have seen what good touch he is in back at home with some big scores for New South Wales.
“I think the whole player-group will be thrilled with his decision.”—Reuters/AFP
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