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Steve Waugh, the former Australia captain, has sent out a message to the ageing members of the current Australian side to retire when they feel it’s best for each of them, rather than getting caught in unnecessary media publicity.

“It’s a high-profile sport. As a player, you can make the decision and let everyone know and then get on with it,” Waugh told the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’. “Just go ahead and do it, if that’s your plan.”

Waugh’s comments mirror that of Justin Langer’s a few days back, when he hinted that he may retire after the Ashes series early next year. Langer cautioned other players of announcing their decision too early, as it would be a huge distraction and that it was upto each individual to decide how much attention they wished to attract.

Waugh was speaking out of personal experience. He went public with his retirement plans even before the 2003-04 home series against India had started, which was a hot topic with the media on an almost daily basis. Waugh also pointed out that such a situation could put a lot of pressure on the new captain. Ricky Ponting succeeded Waugh as captain after the series, a unanimous decision.

“It’s different when you’re a captain compared to being a player,” Waugh said. “As captain, you get all the talk about who is going to be the next guy in charge.

“We were able to deal with that. Ricky [Ponting] was given the job almost straight away so that was taken care of. People had been talking about whether I was going to stop playing for so long and I wanted to put an end to it.

“With these guys, if a few of them are leaving, there won’t be just one bloke caught up in it. Ideally, you probably want to leave the game without all the fuss. That would be perfect, but it can’t work that way.”

The Australian side has quite a few players in their mid to late 30s, including Matthew Hayden, Langer, Shane Warne, Damien Martyn and Stuart MacGill.

Source:The News