Sreesanth adds spice: Warne

The growing animosity between India and Australia and its on-field manifestations may have come as a worry for the match officials, but spin great Shane Warne believes the game needs drama like this and it would only spice up the summer of cricket. A showman, who hardly needed provocations to get under the skin of the opponents, Warne saw nothing wrong in S Sreesanth’s war of words with Andrew Symonds or Harbhajan Singh’s outburst, goaded by the close-in fielders in the heated second ODI at Kochi. “I don’t think anything was over the top, so I think it’s going to add a bit of spice to the summer,” Warne was quoted as saying by The Australian.

“Everyone’s going to be looking for Sreesanth to do his stuff and it shows with a bit of passion. I think it’s going to be good for the summer,” he said. In his illustrious international career, Warne never allowed anyone to bully or browbeat him but admitted sledging Sachin Tendulkar often proved counter-productive. “We tried to go after Sachin in the early ‘90s and he’s reeled off a hundred just about every game, so we thought don’t say anything to him on the field,” Warne said.