Part of the reason Steve Waugh succeeded in cricket was his willingness to do what others dithered over or never attempted. As a youngster in the 1980s, he was capable of scoring quickly in all parts of the ground, unafraid to bounce Viv Richards more than once in an over, and an early pioneer of the slower ball - a delivery he used to telling effect during Australia's 1987 World Cup win.
Little wonder, then, that Waugh is attracted to T20 cricket, a format he believes allows players to experiment. This week Waugh made his maiden foray into T20 cricket as a co-owner of the Amsterdam Flames franchise in the newly launched European T20 Premier League (ETPL), scheduled to begin on August 26.
You were a flamboyant cricketer, especially in the first half of your career. You played all the strokes. You were also one of the early adopters of the back-of-the-hand slower ball. What are the skill sets in today's T20 game that you find attractive?
I'm glad you mentioned the slower ball. I actually invented this slower ball. I was the first one to bowl that [delivery]. So thank you for mentioning that. A lot of people forget that.
I would love to play T20 cricket because it gives [a player] the opportunity to experiment, to try new things, to think outside the box, to almost disregard the past and try and create the future. That's exciting for a cricketer to do.
I love the fact that batsmen can invent these shots. Bowlers are bowling these amazing slower balls that haven't been seen before. The fieldsmen have been so athletic, the way they catch it on the boundary and throw the ball back in and re-catch it. It's exciting to watch. The sky's the limit for T20 - you are only limited by your imagination of what you can do.
Some of the shots that have been created now… I remember being in the [Australia] nets with Bob Simpson as our coach, and if someone tried a reverse sweep - because it was just coming into that era in the late 1980s - you were out of the net. Your session was over. You weren't allowed to play those shots. So I'm a bit jealous of the current players because they could play whatever they want and try different things. And if it comes off, then they've invented a new shot, which is fantastic.
How many slower-ball variations did you have?
One, because it worked! I stuck with that.
Look, as I got older, I think every ball [being bowled] was a slower ball, so I needed a faster ball! But when I first started, it was relatively new. Myself and Simon O'Donnell [started bowling the slower ball]. I mean, I rolled the ball out of the back of the hand, Simon O'Donnell bowled out the side of the hand. That was the 1987 World Cup, where we won in front of 100,000 people at Eden Gardens. And that was ahead of its time because we had two bowlers bowling different slower balls, which the other sides hadn't seen before.
If you were playing T20 today, what is the role you would have played best?
I would've loved to have done everything! I would've been, I guess, an allrounder-batter. Yeah, I would've loved the challenge because, you're right, when I was young, I was a very flamboyant player, but our Test side needed players like Allan Border to dig in because we weren't a winning side when I first started playing. So that dictated the way I played the game and I modified my style. But if I played T20, I'd like to think that I'd be at the forefront of trying new shots, trying different slower balls. It'd be great fun to play.
What is one thing T20 has made better and one thing it has made worse for cricket?
It's brought more people to the game of cricket. A lot of people who come to T20 have never seen the game before, never been to a cricket match. So as soon as they get to T20, they go, "Yeah, this is fantastic." And then they might actually progress to watching a one-day game or a Test match. So I think it's actually increased the audiences of Test matches because there's new people watching the game.
The potential danger is, it shortens the [number] of Test matches that maybe are being played because there's so many [franchise] competitions. That's why we want this [ETPL] to be a meaningful competition. It's not just a token gesture to support European cricket. This aims to be one of the best leagues in the world, if not the best T20 competition in the world. I mean, that's lofty ambitions, but you've got to set your standards high.
Yeah, the danger… I want to make sure Test cricket survives. I'm a Test-cricket lover. My passion lies in Test cricket, although I enjoy watching T20 cricket. I want to see Test cricket survive and prosper as well.