Steve Waugh's mental battles with Sourav Ganguly are well documented. There was no love lost between the Australian skipper and his Indian counterpart during the Aussies' tour of India in 2001, but both men have decided to let bygones be bygones.

Ten days after Ganguly professed great respect for the older Waugh, it was the turn of the Aussie to return the compliment. "I enjoy his stuff," Waugh said on Friday, shortly after a bronze sculpture of Richie Benaud was unveiled at the SCG by Professor Marie Bashir, the governor of New South Wales.

"We've met a few times after I retired," Waugh went on. "I respect him as a player. We had some issues on the field but that's all part of the game. It's all forgotten now. But it's tremendous the way he's come back, he's playing better than I've ever seen him play."

Ruling out coaching as a career in the immediate future, the New South Welshman observed, "I really enjoy the role of mentoring, if it's a possibility. I consider (coaching) offers but as of now, coaching is not on my radar. The toughest job for an Indian coach is to deal with what the selectors and the country want. If you're trying to build something for the future, you don't have time to put things in place. In some ways the problem in India is patience, or the lack of patience.” And what of this series itself? "This is possibly the most crucial day in the series. If they can bat well today, they give themselves a chance of winning. If they don't, then they're in with a chance of losing this Test and won't come back in the series after that."