Sydney, Oct 25: In his new book to be released next week, former Australian wicket keeper has elaborated on his loveless relationship with his former teammate Shane Warne, saying he was “hurt” at being called an "a . . . licker" by the legendary spinner.

The incident happened in a Sheffield Shield match in the late 1990s when Warne mercilessly sledged the wicketkeeper in an incident, which Gilchrist has never forgotten.

Warne, playing for Victoria, was backing his great mate Darren Berry to be Ian Healy''s successor as Test wicketkeeper, over Gilchrist, who was playing for WA. "Warnie and Darren Berry were absolutely giving it to me, verbally," the Daily Telegraph quoted Gilchrist as writing in his autobiography “True Colours”.

"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. I felt it had a lot to do with me being above Chuck (Berry) in the pecking order behind Healy. Chuck might have envied me because of that and Warnie was Chuck''s best friend. But, considering I''d played some cricket with Warnie now for Australia, it was below the belt. At the time it almost killed me,” Gilchrist has written in his book.

Warne and Gilchrist were one of most successful bowler-keeper partnerships in history, but never really got along, said the paper.

Their frosty relationship sprang to life when Warne was stripped of the vice-captaincy in 2000 and Gilchrist was given the position. Being dropped from the Australian vice-captaincy hurt Warne because it excluded him from one of the things he cherished most about cricket - a say in the team leadership, it added. (ANI)