Shane Warne’s feud with Steve Waugh is a sad event for Australian cricket - Robert Craddock

THERE will be a cure for global warming before Shane Warne and Steve Waugh share a beer together, and, while Warne says his being dropped by Waugh was the cause, there was another major factor at play.

Cricketer Shane Warne (l) with Steve Waugh at MCG 12 Feb 1999. p/

IT IS the feud that never ends – and probably never will.

So deep is the resentment between Shane Warne and Steve Waugh that any hope of a peaceful resolution to their 17-year cold war has long passed.

We’ll tip right now that there will be a cure for global warming before Warne and Waugh are spotted sharing a frosty ale.

Neither man loses sleep over it. Neither has any regrets.

Waugh has claimed he did the right thing by dropping a labouring Warne from the Test side in the West Indies in 1999.

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Warne insists it was rough justice.

Neither is budging a square centimetre which has left their relationship with more fractures than Humpty Dumpty.

As intriguing as it is to see two superstars at war it’s a sad event for Australian cricket because it makes two of its most decorated players look so poor, Warne because of what he is saying and Waugh because of what has been said about him.

Warne has claimed Waugh is the most selfish cricketer he has ever met and traces it back to the Test axing.

So deep is the resentment between Shane Warne and Steve Waugh that any hope of a peaceful resolution to their 17-year cold war has long passed.

But there’s another factor at play here.

Warne desperately wanted to be Test captain. Waugh pipped him for the role a few months before the West Indian tour and their relationship never recovered.

The captaincy debate was a close thing.

Trevor Hohns’ national selection panel, preferring Warne’s flair to Waugh’s grit, actually nominated Warne for the Test captaincy but the board over-ruled them.

The late Brisbane barrister Damien Mullins swayed the board’s opinion when he claimed Warne’s behavioural standards could not be banked on.

Warne’s claims that Waugh was a selfish player have merit but deserve to be viewed in context.

Every man is a product of their environment and there was no silver spoons floating around in a humble western Sydney household where Bev and Rodger Waugh were raising their four boys.

Waugh’s wife Lynne tells an insightful story of the night she went to meet Steve’s parents.

When a tray of sausages were placed on the dinner table it was like a scene from a spaghetti western as four forks dived into the plate and the sausages were gone before she had a chance to reach for her cutlery.

Steve took pity on her and gave her one of his snags. His mates joke that knowing how tight he was there could have been no more telling gesture of true love.

Steve may have been a teenage glamour boy of cricket but beneath the Boy Wonder headlines lay a steely but nervous blue collar warrior who he had to fight for everything he had.

As a consequence he became protective, insecure, and paranoid as he took his first steps in the wider, fiercely competitive world of professional sport.

Warne desperately wanted to be Test captain. Waugh pipped him for the role a few months before the West Indian tour and their relationship never recovered.

One rival remembers Waugh saying “it’s okay for you, I am trying to make a living out of this’’ during an early game after he took the plunge to play full time.

Unlike, say, Ricky Ponting, Steve was not eased into an Australian team who was trampling the world and simply joined the party.

He was tossed in as a gifted but unworldly teenager in the mid-1980s where the Australian team was like 11 men on a life raft fighting a bitter battle for survival.

Was he selfish? Of course. Most were. In troubled times, who is the first person you look after?

Was he more selfish than most? Perhaps – but he grew.

Waugh never admitted this but it always looked as if he realised how selfish he was and that the way to overcome it was to invest himself in emerging players like Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer.

Hi did once concede “you realise there is so much of the game that you are not involved in so you must learn to appreciate other people’s success.’’

Without his support neither Hayden or Langer would have played 100 Tests.

Hayden and Langer still cherish this support and will do for life.

There will always be a spare sausage on the barbecue at their place with his name on it.

Originally published as Shane Warne’s feud with Steve Waugh is a sad event for Australian cricket - Robert Craddock