The Australian leg-spin great said Ricky Ponting’s team may pay for a lack of match practice in the longer form of the game before the series opener in Brisbane on November 25.

“I think it’s in shambles, to be honest, and this is so unfair on our players when they’re preparing for a much-anticipated Ashes series,” Warne told the Herald-Sun newspaper on Thursday.

“They basically have two Tests in India in October and that’s it until the Ashes, as far as the longer form of the game is concerned. You can get away with limited match practice prior to a series against Pakistan or the West Indies, but not an in-form England,” he added.

In contrast, England are playing Pakistan in a three-Test home series this month before they have two three-day games and one four-dayer in Australia ahead of the Brisbane Test.

Warne, who bagged 708 Test wickets, said England have a more settled line-up in the countdown to the Ashes, while Australia’s selectors are not sure about their best eleven.

“I think they’re in two minds about what their best batting and bowling line-ups are going into in such a crucial series,” he said.

But Warne remained confident Australia could regain the Ashes, although he was wary following England’s demolition of Pakistan in the first Test at Trent Bridge last weekend.

“England is settled and they’re clicking at the right time,” Warne said. “We’ll need to be at our best because England aren’t overawed or intimidated by Australia. Graeme Swann is the most improved bowler in world cricket and Jimmy Anderson is in great form. They have the ability to take 20 wickets in a match and that’s what it comes down to.”

England hold the Ashes after winning the last series 2-1 at home.

In effect, the format would resemble two Twenty20 matches played back to back, although wickets lost and runs scored would accumulate over the full 40 overs. The existing 50-over FR Cup is likely to be played at the start of the upcoming Australian summer with the new competition, if approved, set to take place in the new year.

Such a move would raise questions over the future of the World Cup, with England and South Africa already having reduced their domestic limited-overs tournaments to 40 overs. Making the change so close to next year’s World Cup could also rob some players of practice in the 50-over format, although Australia’s ODI team will continue playing the longer games.

“We’re certainly concerned about that, there will need to be some thorough discussion, obviously quite quickly since we’re talking about next season,” Darren Lehmann, the president of the Australian Cricketers’ Association, told AAP. “We’re happy they’re talking about reviewing the game and improving it, as far as how far they go, that has got to be discussed at length.”

“Maybe reducing the overs to 40 per side is not a bad start, whether we can do two 20 over innings is something we need to discuss. My personal preference is to go to 40 overs per side, but I’m open to all ideas to improve the game,” he added.

While Cricket Australia was reluctant to discuss the idea in detail, a CA spokesman said there was no reason to be concerned ahead of Australia’s World Cup defence. “Our view is that you can change the domestic format without affecting preparations for the World Cup,” the spokesman said.

Paine, who has played 17 limited-overs internationals for Australia, will join the team for one-day matches this month against England. Haddin is sidelined with a tennis elbow and may also miss Australia’s two test matches against Pakistan in July, opening the way for Paine to make his test debut.

Paine made his one-day debut for Australia last September and posted a high score of 111 against England at Trent Bridge in the sixth match of last year’s limited-overs series.

The Test, which Pakistan lost from an advantageous position, was under the scanner as the then coaches Initkhab Alam and Aqib Javed suspected match-fixing by their players, particularly stumper Kamran Akmal.

According to media reports, the ICC’s Anti Corruption and Security Unit head Paul Condon, who was looking into the match-fixing claims, has given a clean chit to Pakistan. Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland had sought information from the ICC when Condon revealed last week that they were investigating the Test.

“The ICC has replied, saying it has seen no evidence of match-fixing and that there is no current investigation of match-fixing,” CA spokesman Peter Young was quoted as saying by The Australian.

“Haroon Lorgat has assured James Sutherland that Australia won the match on its merits. Lord Condon found evidence of a demoralised team and warned that cricket authorities needed to be extra vigilant,” Young added.

Pakistan had a disastrous tour where they were whitewashed by Australia as they lost the Test and ODI series and also a Twenty20 international.

The ill-fated tour led to the Pakistan Cricket Board forming an enquiry committee to probe the national team’s failure Down Under. Appearing before the committee, Alam and Javed suspected match-fixing. The Committee recommended bans and fines on seven players, including Mohammed Yousuf and Younis Khan for alleged indiscipline.

The proceedings of the committee were recently leaked and created a stir as Alam and Javed suspected match-fixing apart from revealing the politics and infighting in the team.

Ricky Ponting has already backed Clarke, saying that he has been impressed with Clarke’s leadership and in the Herald Sun on Thursday, and Shane Warne argued that Clarke was the best captaincy option and No. 3 for the Twenty20 team. However, after arriving in Sydney, Clarke conceded he might have to dust off some of the more aggressive strokes he played as a younger man.

“Who knows? Maybe I need a little bit of that back,” Clarke said. “Everybody has a different role in our team though and that is one thing that players certainly are aware of, and you need to do your role to the best of your ability. For me my role is not the same as Dave Warner or Shane Watson. I always want to perform, I always want to score runs, it doesn’t matter what form of the game I’m playing, but like I said in this game, sometimes you can’t always make those runs.”

Clarke’s immediate future in the format is expected to be decided over the next week as the selectors settle on the squads for the upcoming tour of England. Clarke is determined to stay in charge of the Twenty20 side, a role he took over last year when Ponting retired from that version of the game.

“No doubt [I want to continue], I’m disappointed we couldn’t win the World T20, but I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity,” Clarke said. “I’ve loved playing with the guys, I’ve had a lot of support from people back at home, the people who came and watched the games in the West Indies, and family and friends, so it’s been great and I’m enjoying it.”

Clarke said that while the loss to England was disappointing, there was no reason to panic ahead of next summer’s Ashes series in Australia. The urn is held by England following their triumph at home last year, but the previous series in Australia was won 5-0 by Ponting’s men.

“It always hurts losing to England in any form of the game, but obviously a lot of guys in both teams won’t take part in the Ashes series,” Clarke said. “They will take confidence out of it, no doubt about it, but I can guarantee the way we’ve been playing Test and one day cricket of late, or even T20 cricket in this tournament, we’re very confident.”

Low-key newspaper coverage also predicted the axe for captain Michael Clarke, whose failure with the bat helped England secure their first ever world cricket title. Sydney’s Daily Telegraph ran a picture of the dejected Clarke standing in front of England’s celebrating players under the headline “Poms target Ashes after our painful Twenty20 hiding”.

“It’s not like losing the Ashes — but it still hurts,” the story read. “Against England, it always does.”

The media predicted that Victoria captain Cameron White could well replace Clarke, who is suddenly in the firing line despite Australia’s positive tournament including a memorable semi-final win over Pakistan.

The Telegraph found echoes in England’s Ashes victory last year, and gloomily pondered whether Sunday’s result was a precursor of this year’s Test series. “As England romped to their seven-wicket win, the sounds of an enraptured Barmy Army echoed around Kensington Oval in such a manner that you thought, for a second, you were back at The Oval when England reclaimed the Ashes last August,” said the article headlined, “Dead and buried”.

“While they mightn’t have been kissing a little urn and soaking themselves in champagne, that they were on a victory dais holding a piece of silverware at Australia’s expense, providing a disturbing mental image of what could lie ahead,” the article read.

The Sydney Morning Herald ran with the headline: “Clarke in firing line after final capitulation”, while The Australian’s back-page story was titled, “T20 defeat puts heat on Clarke’s future”.

Saker, who spent six years as an assistant coach with Victoria after playing 72 first class matches for the state and neighbouring Tasmania from 1994-2003, is to replace Ottis Gibson, who has taken over as the head coach of the West Indies.

“I’ve long held ambitions of coaching at international level so the prospect of working with the England team is something I’m very much looking forward to and excited by,” the 43-year-old Saker said in an England and Wales Cricket Board statement. “I believe I can offer the England bowlers a great deal and oversee their development at the highest level.”

Saker joins fellow Australian, Troy Cooley, who has earlier been England’s bowling coach. Cooley was widely credited with helping England’s bowlers to a surprise Ashes victory in 2005, though he has since joined the Australian team.

England coach Andy Flower said he was looking forward to working with Saker. “We were sorry to see Ottis Gibson leave the position but we believe we’ve found an excellent successor and look forward to David joining us in the lead up to what will be an exciting and challenging year ahead.” England host Bangladesh and Pakistan before they travel to Australia in November to defend the Ashes.

Lee, who has been recovering from an elbow injury, has not played any match for his IPL franchise, Kings XI Punjab, this year and will not do so until after he gains more treatment on the elbow problem that sidelined him during the Australian summer, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Lee, 33, has already retired from Test cricket but hopes to be part of Australia’s squad for the world Twenty20 championships in the Caribbean, which is scheduled to start next month.

The veteran fast bowler was last month included in Australia’s preliminary squad of 30, which will be pruned to 15 in the lead-up to the tournament.

Roebuck pointed out that Tendulkar continues to go from strength to strength and his dazzling double century in Gwalior reinforced his reputation as the finest batsman to appear in the past 60 years.

“After two decades of intense scrutiny and hard campaigns, he was fresh enough to bat an entire innings and collar all sorts of bowling. He has been sustained by a simple love of the game and, especially, batting. As Andre Agassi has confirmed, it’s not as easy as it sounds. A lot can be lost once sport becomes a job,” Roebuck writes in his column.

Tendulkar was not playing against any ordinary side, but was facing the might of South Africa, one of the best bowling attacks in the world, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

“Tendulkar conquered South Africa not with brute force but with the purity of style that has been his hallmark since first he arrived as a child at Shivaji Park, a young boy seeking opportunity and competition. His ability to combine classical and virtuoso has been unique,” he writes. “No batsman has been as rewarding to watch in the past decades, and none has been superior. Among past masters, Viv Richards and Sunil Gavaskar stand out. Gavaskar ruled with meticulous technique. Richards dictated with relish.”

“Among the moderns, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Brian Lara stand apart. Ponting’s greatness is an established fact. Lara has been the genius of the age. Tendulkar is not flawless. Of all modern batsmen, though, he has been the most complete,” he adds.

“This is not the end of me. It’s a cricket choice and it’s a lifestyle choice,” said the 33-year-old fast bowler.

“To me, Test cricket is my favourite part of the game, wearing the baggy green cap,” he told Sky News. “But if I’m going to keep playing cricket for another few years, something had to give.”

Lee, considered one of the fastest bowlers ever in the history of the game, took 316 wickets in 76 test matches since making his debut in 1999 against India, making him Australia’s fourth most successful test bowler behind Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Dennis Lillee.

Lee said his best memory was his first Test wicket, which came when he bowled Sadagoppan Ramesh in his opening over on debut at the MCG in 1999-2000. “At that point I could’ve hung up the boots just then,” he said.

The speedster hasn’t played a Test match since December 2008, when he suffered severe foot injury during the Boxing Day match against South Africa in Melbourne. And after dealing with long-term foot, ankle, side and elbow injuries over the past 15 months he knows his body can’t take the strain. Despite his decision to focus on the one-day and Twenty20 formats, Lee does not want younger fast men to give up on Tests.

“Obviously, there’s specialist one-day and Twenty20 bowlers,” he said at the SCG. “But for me, Test cricket is where it’s at. There’s a lot of luck in Twenty 20, a lot of skill and a bit of luck in one-dayers. But Test cricket is a test for the bowlers and a test for the batsmen.”

There were reports earlier that Lee was contemplating retirement and that he had finally decided to quit after talking to England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who retired from the five-day format last year. New Zealand’s Jacob Oram has also walked away from Tests to focus on one-dayers and Twenty20s.

“This hasn’t happened overnight. This has been a long process,” Lee said. “I’ve had the time to step away from cricket and what I want to achieve. It’s been about a three- to four-month decision that I’ve made and finally I went with it.”

Standing at well over six feet, Lee’s intimidating physique and pace made him a threat for any batsmen as he formed one of the best bowling attacks ever alongside Warne and McGrath in Australia’s all-conquering side of the 2000s, when they dominated Test cricket.

Wisden magazine’s 2006 Cricketer of the Year lays claim to cricket’s second quickest recorded delivery when he bowled at 99.9 miles (160.8 kilometres) per hour in 2003, a speed bettered only by Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar.

Lee, who is scheduled to play for the Kings XI Punjab in next month’s Indian Premier League, said that like other Australian players, he was awaiting security clearance to play in this year’s IPL after a reported threat from an al-Qaeda-linked militant. “As far as going to India, it’s just waiting and seeing,” he said. “We’re not in a rushed situation to make a call. We (players) are not experts in that field.”

Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland congratulated Lee on a “fantastic” career and said he hoped to see him return for Australia’s one-day and Twenty20 teams.

“I remember seeing him debut at the MCG against India in the Boxing Day Test back in 1999,” Sutherland said. “He bowled a very quick spell that had the Indian batsmen ducking for cover and straight away I think we all knew then that we were watching the birth of a great fast bowler.”

Australian skipper, Ricky Ponting, said that Lee should be remembered as one of the game’s greats.

“If we all just take a minute and think about what he’s put himself through in that 10 or 12 years,” he said. “Running 35 metres to bowl every ball, bowling every ball at close to 150kph, and putting his heart on the line every ball he bowls, this bloke deserves a massive pat on the back.”

Lee, who averaged 30.82 runs per wicket and has 10 five-wicket hauls, is currently 22nd on the all-time international Test bowlers’ list.

But his fans would most remember him in his batting helmet and pads, when he was consoled by Flintoff after Australia fell agonisingly short of a win in the 2005 Ashes series, which England went on to win.