Warne Eager to Start Anew

Shane Warne has been bending life's rules for years. Now Australia's cricket administrators are at it, so keen are they to see if the wonder spinner still has what it takes after his 12-month sabbatical.

Not that it will have mattered much to Jason Arnberger, but when he made way for Warne on the second day of Victoria's second XI game against the Queensland Academy of Sport at the Junction Oval, St Kilda, last week, the integrity of a cricket match, however obscure, was inevitably diminished.

A quibble? Perhaps. After all, who cares about second XI cricket, which is used primarily to blood promising club players? Nevertheless, the fact Victoria's selectors picked him the first day after his suspension ended is indicative of a wider anxiety in Australian cricket.

With injury and age taking their toll on the best side in the world, there is good reason to forgive and forget. Glenn McGrath's foot injury, the first major one of his long and distinguished career, is taking a worryingly long time to heal; Brett Lee's bowling has been more flash than substance for a while; and Jason Gillespie is usually only a match or two away from another breakdown. As the selectors prepare this week to pick a squad for the forthcoming Test series in Sri Lanka, they will be aware that there's not a lot left in the bowling cupboard.

Now Tim May, the joint chief executive of the Australian Cricketers' Association, will ask the International Cricket Council at their meeting in Bangladesh this week to change the rules on drugs.

He has a fair point in observing that the list of proscribed substances is too big. And May, a very good Test spinner himself, might also be right in asserting that the drug Warne took could hardly enhance his performance, given the particular skills of hand-eye co-ordination needed in cricket, not to mention the art of turning a ball miles.

None of which excuses Cricket Australia's decision in the first place to break their own rules and give Warne one year out rather than the stipulated two for using a banned substance.

But then, so enchanting is his genius, Warne has been receiving the benefit of the doubt from admirers most of his life. At the Allan Border medal dinner in Melbourne on Thursday night, there were many bright lights of the game prepared to applaud his return.

The former Test opener Keith Stackpole warned, however, that he might have to tread lightly. 'I don't think he will find it as easy as he did before, because he has a new captain to work with, Ricky Ponting, and it's important to realise that in the past 12 months, other than a minor hiccup against India, the Australia team has won well without him.

'The players know that Warne attracts a lot of attention and this gets some of their backs up. I think he will always be a controversial figure, but hopefully he will have learned from his mistakes.'

Ian Chappell, whose own personality sometimes got him into trouble, said: 'If the selectors are fair dinkum they will pick Warne for Sri Lanka. It's good to see him back and I think he will get back to his best.

'I think its always going to be the same with him and the media. They won't leave him and his family alone, but he knows that.'

Older players were unsure about Warne's return. 'I am pretty ambivalent about the whole Warne thing,' said Brian Booth, whose graceful batting lit up Australia's Test team in the Sixties.

'It's good to see him back from a cricketing point of view, but I am not sure if he can get any better as a bowler. He is 34 now and like cricketers of all eras he has come and he will go. He has been around for so long that I don't like to get involved with all of the hype that always surrounds him.'

Bill Brown, whose pedigree stretches back further than anyone else at the dinner, observed: 'It's good from the point of view of Australian cricket to see him back. Of course it is. Whether he stays out of trouble or not is up to him.'

Bobby Simpson thinks Warne will behave himself if given the chance: 'Shane is one of the greatest bowlers of all time. He accepts that he has been silly and for that reason he has earned the respect of everyone around him. He has paid the penalty for his actions and now he has every right to play again.

'He looks to be bowling well and I would be surprised if he doesn't get back to his best. He handles the media brilliantly, but I can't see them leaving him alone.'

Warne's wife, Simone, has a realistic take. Commenting on his fling with a lap-dancer, she said in a recent interview: 'Leaving him would have been the easy thing to do. We do have a family, we do have a good relationship. Twelve years is long time, three children, there's a lot at stake.

'It's a case of weighing up what he'd done and deciding whether it was worth throwing away what we have. That's what we are trying to do now, forgive and forget and move on. We are both trying and we hope it works.'

And the man himself? He seems to have grasped the seriousness of the dilemma in his personal life, not to mention his cricket career. 'I think that this is my last chance at everything. My last chance with Simone. My last chance with my life. This is it. I believe that sometimes you need to reach the lowest ebb in your life to say enough's enough and start again.'

Next up is a Pura Cup game against Tasmania at the MCG starting tomorrow, and against whom the blond boyo managed a wicket with his second ball in yesterday's 50-over match, although he conceded 48 runs from 10. For his own sake - not to mention the thrill of watching him at venues some way removed from Junction Oval - he deserves another chance.

Additional reporting by Ahmer Khokhar