MELBOURNE, Dec 31: Shane Warne may be pushing the line with his aggressive appealing for wickets, but team-mate Justin Langer says his style provides some of cricket’s great theatre.

Langer, 35, is in line for a return to the Australian team for Monday’s third Sydney Test after missing Friday’s 184-run win over South Africa in Melbourne with a hamstring injury.

“It’s indicative of his passion for the game,” Langer said on Saturday.

“I remember as a kid watching (Australian fast bowling great) Dennis Lillee appeal. It was one of the great sights of cricket.

“I used to run around as a 10-year-old, bowl and then appeal like Dennis Lillee.

“He thinks it out and he gives it a big appeal. To me that’s just part of the game, part of the great theatre of the great Shane Warne.”

Warne last week passed Lillee’s 1981 world record of 85 Test wickets in a calendar year.

Leg-spinner Warne finished with 96 at 22.02 after his six wickets in the second Test at the MCG.

But Warne, Test cricket’s leading wicket-taker with 657 in his career, has generated widespread debate here with his vociferous appeals for wickets.

Langer said critics had to realise that constant appealing by slow bowlers was part of the game when fielders were crowding around the bat in a tense atmosphere.

“When you play on a wicket that is spinning a lot like we saw in Melbourne, there are a lot of people around the bat and there’s a lot happening,” Langer told reporters.

“In the past we’ve been critical of over-appealing on the subcontinent but if you look at it, that’s almost the nature of the game in those circumstances,” he said.

“There are people around the bat, there’s a lot of action, particularly when you’ve got class bowlers.

“India have (Anil) Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, here we have Warnie and (Stuart) MacGill,” he said.—AFP