Shane Warne Lambastes The 'Verbal Diarrhea' Around The Baggy Green

Shane Warne is one of the greatest-ever cricketers to have played the game for Australia but unlike his compatriots, he doesn’t hail the ‘Baggy Green’ at the same pedestal as the other Australians do. Baggy Green, for all its traditions and history, is one of the most sacred things for Australian cricket but Shane Warne has always maintained one does not have to wear it to showcase his love for the game.

Shane Warne had recently auctioned off his ‘Baggy Green’ in a bid to raise funds for the damages caused by the Bushfires back in January. He, however, does not miss it one bit as its presence evokes ‘verbal diarrhea’ among its admirers, something he can never be a part of.

“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. I loved playing cricket for Australia, and I didn’t need to wear that cap or have that verbal diarrhea about it, I just enjoyed playing cricket for Australia,” Shane Warne said to a Melbourne-based radio as quoted by India Today.

“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. There was too much verbal diarrhea about the baggy cap it was a bit too over the top for me. 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.” he added.

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This is not the first time that Shane Warne has openly talked about his reservations against the ‘over-romanticization’ of the Baggy Green

During his career, the legendary leg-spinner was at constant loggerheads with Steve Waugh over his views on the prized cap. Back in 2018, Warne, in a conversation with Michael Vaughan, had revealed how he was left disgusted and embarrassed when Waugh had asked his team to wear the cap during their trip to a Wimbledon match.

“The ultimate embarrassment was when Steve Waugh – we went to see Pat Rafter play at Wimbledon and he wanted the whole team to wear it. I looked at Mark Waugh and he said ‘I’m not wearing it’ and I said ‘I’m not wearing it either. So the guys that idolized Steve Waugh – Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist those types of guys, all wear the Baggy Green to Wimbledon. It makes me want to puke to think about that, these guys, grown men, wore baggy green caps to Wimbledon. So I refused. Looking back at some of those photos, It was embarrassing to watch.” Shane Warne told Michael Vaughan on BBC Radio in 2018.

Warne had also criticized Steve Waugh of asking the team to wear the cap on the first morning of the Test match. Meanwhile, the legendary leg-spinners cap was sold for a whopping 1 million dollars.

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