Shane Warne should just come out and say it: he didn't particularly like Steve Waugh and Adam Gilchrist.

Warne's decision to rate Waugh No. 26 and Gilchrist 20 in the list of his 50 top cricketers of his era for The Times newspaper has set tongues wagging in the cricket world.

People are saying they're right the friendship between Warne and Waugh deteriorated after Waugh pipped him for the Australian captaincy in 1999, then reached an icy low from which it never really recovered when Waugh dropped Warne on a West Indian tour a few months later.

They are also saying there was little warmth in the relationship between Gilchrist and Warne because they were men of contrasting styles the wholesome family man and the reckless cavalier whose lives rarely met in the middle.

This is also close to the truth.

There was no scathing criticism of Waugh and Gilchrist from Warne but after a mini-lifetime of touring with each man Warne knows their soft spots and gave both a gentle nudge.

His reference to Waugh as "a batsman who saved matches rather than won them" was telling.

We all know where he was coming from but given Waugh averaged 69 in Tests won by Australia and just 35 in drawn games it was a harsh assessment of his worth.

If there was one thing that annoyed the Waugh twins it was the typecasting of Mark as a freewheeling buccaneer who lacked steel and Steve as the square-

jawed, ironwilled scrapper who could sandpaper the mightiest opponent to dust but lacked his brother's flair.

The twins maintained they were much more similar in style than anyone bar themselves ever realised.

"When I first saw what he wrote about me I thought there must have been a mistake and someone had accidentally put Shane name's to an article by (long-time Waugh critic) Ian Chappell," Steve Waugh told me last night.

He sounded amused by it all and certainly was not surprised by it.

After seeing his wife battle a life-threatening illness last year not a lot bothers Waugh in the cricket world these days. He is a more mellow man than he was.

But underneath it all there is a fascinating, essentially untold story about how two superstars of the modern game somehow managed to survive and thrive year after year in the same side despite a fallout which left each man cold.

Waugh will never expand on the details because he could not be bothered starting a bushfire from which no one could win.

Warne's definition of Gilchrist as "still a batsman-keeper rather than the other way around" is not flattering (even given Gilchrist's freakish batting skills) and one which Gilchrist would not enjoy.

You can call Gilchrist a madhouse slogger and he will laugh along with you but dismissing of his keeping skills hurts him because he sees himself as a keeper first.

It's as if keeping is his business, batting his hobby.

Mark Waugh (12) and Sri Lanka's Aravinda de Silva (19) would consider themselves blessed to be higher up the ladder

than Gilchrist, a far superior player to both.

In a perverse sort of way, Warne's modest rating of Steve Waugh and Gilchrist gives us a hint of why Australian teams have been so successful over the past decade they simply put the personal stuff to one side and go out and play for the team.

It sounds easy to do but it has been beyond many fragmented England, West Indian, Indian and Pakistan teams of the same era.

Warne and Waugh might not have been each other's cup of tea but you would never have known it on the field.

It's hard to be too critical of Warne's team because as the sole selector he can choose whomever he likes.

So long as the list is called Shane Warne's top 50 cricketers every name is right because he said so.

If anyone is entitled to their opinion, it's him.

Warne's list is an interesting blend of who left a mark on him and many who he simply enjoyed.

Sachin Tendulkar made a predictable appearance at No. 1 and has long been a player Warne deeply admired.

Allan Border is the highest placed Australia at No. 4 after Warne relished the encouragement he gave Warne in the first few years of his Test career.

Cavaliers fared well.

Jamie Siddons (50) made the list despite not playing Tests.

Kevin Pietersen ranked 30 though his Test career is just two years old and Darren Lehmann (25) and Merv Hughes (18) were also prominent in a list that proved that even though Warne may be gone forever from international cricket he still knows how to stir the pot.