October 19 Saturday 2002
Harvey wants Waughs dropped

PERTH: Neil Harvey, the former Australian batsman and selector, has called for the Waugh twins to be dropped before the start of the Ashes series against England as their "mediocre form threatens to bring two illustrious careers to a close."

An outspoken critic of the Waughs in the past, Harvey believes it is time to blood new players with the Ashes series only three weeks away. Harvey, 74, said: "Both Steve and Mark Waugh need to go, and we have got players waiting to take their places. There is no future for them, and we have got guys who can do the job just as well if not better than those has-beens.

"We all know why they are still playing and that is because of the money involved. While the selectors are not strong enough to drop them, they'll carry on."

England are due to play their first game on Tuesday here when they will take on an Australian Cricket Board Chairman's XI, a team including Kim Hughes and Yorkshire coach Wayne Clark, at Lilac Hill.

Meanwhile, the Waugh brothers, after 14 months without a Test century, know they must take full advantage of today's third and final Test against Pakistan in Sharjah if they are to cement their places for the England series starting next month. Australian coach John Buchanan conceded that the issue of the Waughs' international future was not going to go away until they finally hung up their baggy green caps for good.

"Whether they score runs or not, there's always going to be an issue there," said Buchanan. "If they get a hundred, the headlines will say they've received a reprieve. If they don't make any runs, the axe is about to fall. 

The focus will be on them no matter what they do and we do, and that's a fact we'll have to live with." Since their twin centuries at The Oval last August, both the Waugh brothers have been groping for form, reaching only six fifties in a combined total of 32 innings.