Sinner leads Italy to Davis Cup semifinals; Australia edges past USA
Defending champions Italy advanced to the Davis Cup semifinals on Thursday after defeating Argentina 2-1, with world No 1 Jannik Sinner winning the singles and doubles match.
He has parted with it to raise money for bushfire relief but the legendary Shane Warne doesn’t miss his ‘Baggy Green’ one bit, reiterating that the prized Australian Test cap evokes “verbal diarrhoea” among its admirers and he can never be one of them.
Warne said he loved playing for his country and it didn’t matter whether he did that wearing the Baggy Green or a floppy hat.
“I always believed that you didn’t have to wear the Baggy Green cap to say how much you loved playing cricket for Australia,” the iconic spinner said on ‘Triple M’, a Melbourne-based radio station.
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“I loved playing cricket for Australia, and I didn’t need to wear that cap or have that verbal diarrhoea about it, I just enjoyed playing cricket for Australia,” he said.
Warne recently auctioned his Baggy Green for bushfire relief efforts.
“I always felt that if I wore a white floppy hat or wore my Baggy Green cap it meant exactly the same, I was playing for Australia,” the 50-year-old said.
Australian cricket greats have spoken about the importance of the Baggy Green in Amazon Prime’s documentary ‘The Test’.
However, Warne slammed the reverence, which has been common to generations of Australian cricketers.
“There was too much verbal diarrhoea about the baggy cap it was a bit too over the top for me,” Warne said.
“The stuff that they go on about, the fabric of the Baggy Green and all this stuff that they go on about, I don’t sign in and buy into that.”
Warne had earlier criticised former Australia skipper Steve Waugh after he asked the players to wear the Baggy Green for the first hour of a Test match.
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