Former Australian all-rounder Shane Watson feels lucky to be playing cricket even after hanging boots, saying he never dreamed of being part of some of the world-class leagues across the world after saying goodbye to international cricket in 2016.
The 37-year-old, who is one of the key figures in the T20 franchise tournaments across the globe, having featured in Indian Premier League, Caribbean Premier League, and Pakistan Super League beside his home country’s Big Bash League, is leading Sindhis in the T10 tournament in Sharjah.
Watson told Khaleej Times in an exclusive interview on Saturday, “I am obviously very fortunate to still be playing at this stage of my career. Obviously, I am not playing international and first-class cricket, but I'm still playing in some world-class leagues.”
He further added, “It's something I never really dreamed of. Here I am having an opportunity to play in a T10 tournament with a wonderful group of players in the Sindhis team. I was always intrigued by how it was going to be like to play in a T10 tournament. And it's definitely bigger than I expected.”
Many cricket legends and even International Cricket Council have expressed their desire that cricket should become an Olympic sport, but the aggressive Aussie all-rounder has the different views on the matter, saying cricket has already at its ultimate stage and there is no need to have in Olympics.
He further added on the same, “The Olympics is a very sacred event that comes around every four years. We are very fortunate that in cricket we have the World Cup and the World T20 Championships. From a selfish cricket point of view, it would be great to have cricket in Olympics and the T10 format is certainly would go well at the Olympics.”
Watson signed off by saying, “But my personal opinion is that the Olympics is really made for sports for which the Olympics is the ultimate stage. We also have the ultimate stage which is playing cricket for the country 12 months a year. The one-day and T20 World Cups are cricket's Olympics. So I think we should leave the Olympics to the key individual sports.”
(With Khaleej Times Inputs)
