Australia strong enough even without Smith and Warner, says Adam Gilchrist 

Gilchrist also opined on the ethical and cultural review that has been made public.

Australia are definitely missing their two best players | Getty

Wicketkeeping great Adam Gilchrist believes that even without the might of Steve Smith and David Warner, Australia has a "world-class lineup" in their arsenal that should be good enough to beat anyone in International cricket. 

In March 2018, Cricket Australia banned Steve Smith, David Warner for one year wach and Cameron Bancroft for a period of 9 months, after the trio was found out guilty of the offense where they were deliberately trying to alter the condition of the ball during the Cape Town Test against South Africa using a piece of sandpaper. 

The incident raised allegations and doubts about the moral and ethical values of the kind of culture that Australian Cricket seems to have developed over the years. This is when the earlier head coach Darren Lehmann resigned from his position despite his contract not expiring till the completion of Ashes 2019.

“On paper, with or without Steve Smith and David Warner in one-day cricket, we have got a world-class line-up that should be able to compete with all the other teams in the world,” Gilchrist was quoted saying recently. 

In line with this, Gilchrist also gave his opinion on the ethical and cultural review that has come out in public, which has stated that CA's damning “arrogant” and “dictatorial” culture across Australian cricket has further brought the side into jeopardy. 

“Don’t waste a crisis. There’s plenty of positive opportunity to come out of this, There’s certainly a talent pool of cricketers in this country that is good enough to compete on the international stage," he said, “With the talent pool we have, the infrastructure we have, the learnings from the fallout of this disastrous seven or eight months … the opportunity is there now for it to progress,"

“I don’t see any reason why it needs to bottom out any further. I think it starts building from now,” and signed off. 

(Inputs from Cricket Next)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 04 Nov, 2018

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