November 01 Friday 2002
Warne predicts whitewash against England

BRISBANE: As the England squad embarked for the East Coast after a morale-boosting finish to its tour match with Western Australia, its cricket nemesis was predicting Australia would thrash the tourists 5-0 in the upcoming Ashes series.

Leg-spinner Shane Warne wrote in a column for Thursday's Courier-Mail newspaper that the merest "shred of self-doubt in English minds is all it will take for Australia to crush England 5-0." "We in the Australian team have no doubt that if we play to our ability, we are man-for-man better than the English and for our part there is complete belief we have the form and the mindset to beat them," Warne added.

Australia, which hosts England in the five-Test series starting next Thursday at Brisbane, has won the last seven Ashes series and hasn't lost any Test series at home in a decade. The Australians need to win the series to retain No. 1 ranking in the International Cricket Council's Test standings after second-place South Africa moved to within 
one-tenth of a point following a series sweep against Bangladesh.

Warne has his detractors in England, where criticism tends to surround his propensity for weight gain rather than his undisputed skill as a leg-break bowler. 

On Ashes debut in 1993, Warne bowled what the British media described as the ball of the century to dismiss England skipper Mike Gatting and help Australia to a 4-1 series win. 

The 33-year-old spinner has never lost an Ashes series. Of his 104 Tests, he has played 23 against England, snaring 118 wickets and capturing a career-best haul of 8 for 71 in the Ashes opener at Brisbane in November, 1994. 

The streamlined Warne is in better shape than he has been for several seasons and warmed up for the Ashes series with 27 wickets - increasing his career tally to 477 - in Australia's 3-0 series sweep against Pakistan in Colombo and Sharjah. "Make no mistake, we respect England," Warne wrote in a column under the headline: "We can thump the Poms 5-0." "We have had it belted into us since we were kids that in cricket there is no greater Australian achievement than winning the Ashes. It is the ultimate for me and it has brought out the best in our guys." 

England had talked about being confident in the past but hadn't backed it up on the field, Warne said. "Certainly in all the Ashes series I've been involved in over the past decade or so, the English have said they believe they'll be competitive. That immediately says to me they don't believe they can do it," Warne said. 

The England squad contained more experience than the one that lost 4-1 in England last year, but that was also a disadvantage for them, he added. "A lot of their players have been involved in previous series and, conversely, our confidence is high because we have repeatedly won those series." England faces Australia's domestic champion Queensland on the weekend in the final tuneup for the first Test.