Cricketnext

New Delhi, Jul 27: "Shane Warne is the greatest captain Australia never had." These were the words of the legendary Ian Chappell. The master spinner lent credence to his words immediately, by leading his IPL team the Rajasthan Royals to success.

The former Australian leg-spinner, who was also the coach of his team, also revealed his dislike for modern coaching methods during the tournament. And now he says that it was the increasing importance given to coaching that drove him to retire from the international stage.

"I retired from Test cricket so I could have more time with my kids, but I'd also grown tired of this other stuff you get in the game. It's called the "professional era" but I don't think it works very well," Warne was quoted as saying by The Sun.

Warne remains a purist's delight, and insists the job of handling things on the field should be left to the captains.

His differences with former Australian coach John Buchanan (who was coaching the Kolkata Knight Riders) are also well-known.

"You have a coach for this, a coach for that, you have got too many recovery sessions, too much mental stuff, too many team meetings, too much training for training's sake, and it all takes away from the actual sport,“ he added.

It's been two months since the Rajasthan Royals overcame all odds to lift the inaugural Indian Premier League title. However, the celebrations and the hysteria around the competition still resonates as much in his mind.

"In almost 20 years of playing the game at the highest level, I don't think I've ever experienced the intensity and passion from a crowd like we had in the IPL, except for maybe the Ashes. The beauty of the competition was that I could bowl to Sachin Tendulkar in Rajasthan and a 70,000 home crowd would be cheering for me to knock over an icon of world cricket that is Indian. That was unbelievable," he said.

The iconic bowler, who was reportedly being approached by the Australian cricket team to make a return for the all-important Ashes series in 2009, also revealed that he followed the path of the captain running the show, which is how teams should operate.

"To me, the captain must run the show. You train hard and then get out there and play. In Rajasthan, if we had a day off there were no meetings or any of that rubbish. If people needed to go to the gym or wanted a session in the pool, that was their business.

"When we weren't training, we sat around and spoke about cricket, how to construct an over, how we would beat the next opposition, and we went from being no-hopers to champions," Warne said.