Melbourne: Shane Warne has described England captain Alastair Cook as 'negative and boring and warned that Australia will regain the Ashes if he doesn't show more imagination.
All this summer Warne kept criticising spent Cook's leadership. And with two weeks to go before battle resumes in Brisbane, the leg-spinning great insisted: 'I don't like that style of captaincy. If you're playing against the best sides in the world under pressure, it won't hold up.'
England all-rounder Stuart Broad recently hit back at Warne, accusing him - and Australia coach Darren Lehmann - of 'trash-talk'. But Warne responded: 'Who have I trash-talked? I was just commenting on what I was seeing, and there were a lot of people who agreed with me on Cook's negative captaincy.
'If Michael Clarke did the same things, I'd say he was negative, but he's not. That's not the way he captains.
'Cook can be negative, boring, not very imaginative - and still win and be pretty happy. But I think he needs to be more imaginative. If Australia play well and he continues to captain the way he does, I think England are going to lose the series.
'He lets the game drift. He waits for the game to come to him. I don't think he can captain the side like that. For me, Michael Clarke is the best captain in the world at the moment. He just has a lot of imagination. Cook would never have a leg slip, bat-pad and leg gully, like Clarke did for Jonathan Trott in the summer.'
Warne also accused Ricky Ponting of 'jealousy' following the former Australian captain's suggestion in his recent autobiography that Clarke was not as committed to the team cause as he might have been while Ponting's vice-captain.
