Impossible to find Warne's replacement: Hilditch

Australia may be happy with the way Nathan Hauritz has been performing of late but chief national selector Andrew Hilditch believes that it would be impossible to fill the vacuum created by the retirement of spin legend Shane Warne.

Australia has been struggling to find a frontline spinner ever since Warne hung up his boots after the Ashes series in 2006-2007.

Selectors have tried atleast seven spinners post the retirement of Warne and have finally showed faith in Hauritz, who is currently with the national team in India.

''The reality is when we lost Warne, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Moving forward I think we have made a lot of progress. We will never replace Warne, that is a non-existent possibility.

There is always going to be a hole and to some extent we've got to stop talking about it,'' said Hilditch, who was recently re-appointed as chief selector until 2011 World Cup. Stuart MacGill, Beau Casson, Cameron White, Jason Krejza, Brad Hogg, Nathan Hauritz and Bryce McGain have all had the opportunities to represent Australia but none could find a permanent place in the national team.

Hilditch, however, insisted that the way Hauritz has performed so far, he has the ability to carry on for a long time.

''Hauritz has made really good progress. We are really happy with how he is going. We think we have found someone who can play a role for us in international cricket, so that's great,'' Hilditch was quoted as saying in 'Herald Sun'. ''I am feeling a lot better about spin than if you had asked me 12 months ago when we were really looking at stop-gap measures to rebuild our spin stocks,'' he said.

-- (UNI) -- 07SPD14.xml

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