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LONDON: Spin legend Shane Warne says Australia is still the best cricketing side in the world - despite the 2-0 drubbing in the India-but question the quality of its bowling.

“There has been a huge amount of talk this week about eras ending and dynasties toppling after India’s win in the Test series. I can understand where they are coming from, but writing off Australia is a bit premature,” Warne warned in his column.

“To me, Australia are still the best side in the world,” the leg spinner said.

“If cricket imitated boxing, the series was the equivalent of a heavyweight title bout and, yes, India would have taken the belt.

“But our sport doesn’t work like that. Conditions are different all over the world and you have to look at how countries go against each other home and away over a period of time before weighing everything up.”

The former world number one wicket taker said he thought the Australian batting is as strong as ever, having put on scores past 400 in the Bangalore Test and nearly 600 in Delhi, “so there isn’t a problem there.”

“The big question is the ability to take 20 wickets.”

“Ricky’s problem has been controlling games in the field now that he doesn’t have somebody like Glenn McGrath or probably myself to call upon,” he said.

“The aura of invincibility that we carried in the eyes of the opposition has probably gone. Teams think they can beat us now, and belief is so important in sport. In the weeks ahead against New Zealand and South Africa we should look to impose ourselves again and intimidate a few opposition players.”

“We just need a bit of spark to get things going again.”

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Australia skipper Ricky Ponting conceded Tuesday he missed retired ace bowlers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath after his side were thumped by India, but vowed to fight back.

Australia suffered its worst Test defeat in a decade here, crashing to 195 all out after chasing a mammoth target of 516 in the second Test.

India secured a massive 320-run victory to go 1-0 up in the series, India’s biggest Test win by runs ever, bettering their 280-run mark against South Africa in 1996.

Ponting said some of his side were suffering from inexperience but had complete confidence in their ability to bounce back for the next Test.

“I have total confidence in my group. With the experience and talent that we have, I am sure we can turn things around pretty quickly,” he said at a post-match press conference.

“Ideally of course I would have liked to have an attack with the McGraths and Warnes. But we’ve got what we’ve got. There is a bit of inexperience, we don’t have a match-winning spinner,” he said.

“But I am not worried about the inexperience. The spinners we have did their job reasonably well.”

Ponting however conceded that Australia were not good enough in the field nor at the crease and were outplayed by India.

“We weren’t good enough in any aspect of this game, be it fast bowling, spin bowling, batting and, at times, our fielding was a bit sloppy, so we’ve been outplayed,” he said.

“Sometimes as a captain and player you have to accept that and say they were better than us this week. We were better than them last week, but that’s irrelevant now and they’re 1-0 up going into the next Test.

For Australia, which won the Border-Gavaskar trophy in India in 2004 after a gap of 34 years under Adam Gilchrist’s captaincy, it was the biggest defeat against India since 1977 in Melbourne.

“India have had a great game here,” he said.

“It is up to us now to regroup and bounce back. That’s a challenge because we are not accustomed to being behind in a Test series.

“It’s a bit of a mindset thing. We have to learn our lessons from this game and then clear our minds before we head into the third Test. We just need to finetune our game.

The teams will disperse for a short break in the lead up to the third Test in New Delhi from Oct 29-Nov 2. The fourth and final Test will be played in Nagpur from Nov 6-10.

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The Indians can underestimate the Aussie pace attack at their own peril. Any team spearheaded by Brett Lee and supported by bowlers like Shane Watson, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson has to be formidable under any conditions. It really does not matter if these bowlers are yet to play a Test match in India, their experience of playing here in the past is enough for them to perform in a Test match,” said Srinath, who has been an impressive performer against the world champions in the past.

“As far as the other two seamers – Peter Siddle and Doug Bollinger – are concerned, they are inexperienced to international cricket. The Aussies will surely be banking heavily on pace to rattle the Indian batsmen, as they don’t have an experienced spinner in the line up,” Srinath told Cricketnext.com on Friday.

“It is not going to be easy for Zaheer and Ishant to match the Aussie pace even though the Indian seamers are surely more experienced to conditions at home.Bowlers like Lee, Watson, Clark and Johnson can win matches single-handedly on their day,” the former Karnataka star observed.

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Full name
Shane Keith Warne

Born
September 13, 1969, Ferntree Gully, Victoria

Major teams
Australia, Hampshire, ICC World XI, Victoria

Nickname
Warney

Playing role
Bowler

Batting style
Right-hand bat

Test debut :Australia v India at Sydney - Jan 2-6, 1992

Last Test :Australia v England at Melbourne - Dec 26-28, 2006

First-class span :1990/91 - 2006/07

List A span :1991/92 – 2006

Twenty20 span :2004 – 2005

Shane Warne profile:
At first there were nerves and chubbiness. Then came wild soaring legbreaks, followed by fame and flippers. For a long while there were women, then a bookmaker, then diet pills, then more women - and headlines, always headlines. Now he has come out the other end, his bluff and bluster and mischief and innocence somehow intact. The man who in 2000 was rated among the five greatest cricketers of the 20th century was, in 2005, bowling better than ever. When Warne likened his life to a soap opera he was selling himself short. His story is part fairytale, part pantomime, part hospital drama, part adult’s-only romp, part glittering awards ceremony. He has taken a Test hat-trick, won the Man-of-the-Match prize in a World Cup final and been the subject of seven books. He was the first cricketer to reach 650 Test wickets. He has swatted more runs than any other Test player without making a hundred, and is probably the wiliest captain Australia never had. His ball that gazoodled Mike Gatting in 1993, bouncing outside leg stump and cuffing off, is unanimously esteemed the most famous in history. He revived legspin, thought to be extinct, and is now pre-eminent in a game so transformed that we sometimes wonder where the next champion fast bowlers will come from. For all that, Warne’s greatest feats are perhaps those of the last couple of years. Returning from a 12-month hiatus for swallowing forbidden diuretics, he swept aside 26 Sri Lankan batsmen in three Tests, and the following year scalped a world record 96 victims - a stunning 24 more than in his show-stopping 1993 - and still missed out on the Allan Border Medal. Forty of those were Englishmen in what sometimes appeared to be a lone stand in a thrilling Ashes series. Nowadays he is helped by his stockpile of straight balls: a zooter, slider, toppie and back-spinner, one that drifts in, one that slopes out, and another that doesn’t budge. Yet he seldom gets his wrong’un right and rarely lands his flipper. More than ever he relies on his two oldest friends: excruciating accuracy and an exquisite legbreak. Except that he now controls the degree of spin - and mixes it - at will. Like the great classical painters, he has stumbled upon the art of simplicity. His bowling has never been simpler, nor more effective, nor lovelier to look at.
Maybe, as with Posh Spice or Kylie Minogue, Warne is more famous than he is loved. Maybe we don’t fully appreciate his genius; maybe, like Bradman’s, it will become ever more apparent with the passing of decades. One thing’s for sure, though. We’ll weep when he’s gone.

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