Gilchrist says pissed off by Warne verbal abuses

Melbourne, Oct 24 (PTI): Besides questioning Sachin Tendulkar’s honesty in the ’Monkeygate" controversy, Adam Gilchrist says in his yet-to-be-released autobiography that he was pissed off by on-field verbal abuses by Shane Warne. In his autobiography ’True Colours’ to be released next week, Gilchrist has revealed the hurt of being labelled "a . . . licker" by Warne. According to ’Daily Telegraph’, Gilchrist claimed that the seeds of animosity were sown in a Sheffield Shield match in the late 1990s when Warne sledged the wicketkeeper. Warne, playing for Victoria, was backing his teammate Darren Berry to be Ian Healy’s successor as Test wicketkeeper, over Gilchrist, who was playing for Western Australia. "Warne and Darren Berry were absolutely giving it to me, verbally," Gilchrist writes in his autobiography. "They were saying ’A . . . -licker, you’ve only got where you are because you’re an a . . .-licker’. The nature of what they were saying was extremely hurtful. "Considering I’d played some cricket with Warne now for Australia, it was below the belt. At the time it almost killed me," he said in his autobiography. Warne and Gilchrist, one of most successful bowler-keeper partnerships in history, never really got along. Their frosty relationship was laid bare sprang when Warne was stripped of the vice-captaincy in 2000 and Gilchrist was given the position. "He has really pissed me off over the years with certain acts, and I’ve pissed him off too." On a conciliatory note, Gilchrist wrote, "But we played eight years of international cricket together. I think it underwrites everything else."