'ICC must get best players play in IPL'

Jaipur: Leg-spin great Shane Warne on Friday said the International Cricket Council should ensure that the world's top players who got signed up with the Indian Premier League play in the "revolutionary" Twenty20 venture.

Talking to newspersons after the official launch of the Jaipur franchisee team Rajasthan Royals, Warne rubbished the notion that IPL would have negative influence in international cricket.

"It is a new and revolutionary concept and if ICC uses a little common sense it can co-exist with international cricket," he said.

"ICC should accommodate IPL in the international calendar and ensure that best players of the cricketing world play in it. It would make the IPL more colourful and competitive," Warne, who would be the captain-cum-coach of the team said.

The Australian, who has 708 Test wickets in his kitty, felt IPL would do a lot of good to the young cricketers instead of having negative effect on them.

"They are getting the money and also chance to play along with great players of the world."

Warne would not also agree that spinners have little role to play in the shortest version of cricket.

"Though Twenty20 is called batsman's game, bowlers can turn it around. Yes, spinners will be hit but often we saw good performance by them too. They have evolved and I feel they certainly have a big role in this format of cricket too," said Warne.

Is Rajasthan Royals the weakest team in the fray in the eight-team League? Warne would not agree, saying, "Yes, we don't have Sachin (Tendulkar), but still we have Younis Khan, Graeme Smith apart from few youngsters in our ranks. I feel we have an exciting team, we have a balanced team."

"It is a question of extracting the best from the team members. It is the responsibility of the players to perform to their potential."

When asked whether his role of captain-cum-coach will work, Warne replied that it had worked for Hampshire where he was shouldering both the responsibilities till deciding to quit first class cricket Thursday.

"I feel it is good as instead of two or three voices you have only one voice in the team. It had worked pretty good. I had combined the two roles in Hampshire and the team reached two finals in four years which was not bad."

Warne does not think that sledging would be an issue during the Twenty20 tournament starting on April 18 and added that he would welcome any role for former India coach Greg Chappell in his IPL team.