Warne waxes as England wane

No one has taken more Test wickets - or late-night phone calls. Shane 'Hollywood' Warne is simultaneously a genius and an idiot, as much a victim as a creation of the cult of celebrity, a man of his times.

Most recently the pulling buddy of his much younger Hampshire team-mate and now Test match adversary, the hog-haired Kevin Pietersen, Warne has in the space of a few weeks reclaimed the headlines at both ends of our newspapers. He is still a wristy wizard capable of tormenting the best batsmen, but he also infuriates the moralists. For as long as he has the energy, this is his life. And, so far, the summer belongs to him.

In an age of almost Cromwellian righteousness, there has been more agonising over his bed-hopping, his failed marriage and his seeming reluctance to ever grow up than how Ian Bell might play his slider in Birmingham this week. Which probably says more about us than it does about Warne.

Does Warne's delinquent behaviour matter? To him, surely. And his estranged wife, of course. And their children. And any friends he might have let down over the years. Not to mention the match-fixing bookmakers from the sub-continent who thought they'd found their dupe, until Warne belatedly blew their cover to admit his naivety in even listening to them. His mother, whose pills both drained the slack from his jowls and landed him with a one-year drugs ban, might also bite her lip every time she opens the Melbourne Age . And small boys trying to unravel the mysteries of the flipper will wonder what the fuss is about.

None of this entertaining, if sad, saga should distract us, though, from the original reason for Warne's presence at the front of our consciousness. Were he not the finest bowler cricket has ever seen, he would be an overweight ex-St Kilda Australian Rules footballer, kicking back in front of the television at home with a few cans and a packet of cigarettes. And he would be wondering what might have been had Terry Jenner not persuaded him to make the most of his gift to turn a cricket ball so prodigiously and so artfully.

It was Jenner - himself a good wrist spinner for Australia (and also a fallible human being) - to whom Warne turned recently to rediscover the zip in his bowling.

Jenner, who is working with the England and Wales Cricket Board as a leg-spin consultant, has never failed to talk up his protege, but few believed him eight years ago when he said Warne would one day pass 600 Test wickets. He has 589 - so it is not impossible he will fulfil his promise to Pietersen to make him victim number 600 this summer. But will he match Jenner's latest prediction of 700?

As for carrying on after series against South Africa and West Indies, Warne isn't so sure. He has said this will be his last Ashes tour of England, and he felt so down after his wife left him that an even earlier retirement looked likely.

But he is very much a prisoner of his whims. With success comes buoyancy and he will be encouraged by his form at Lord's to carry on. Or so Jenner thinks. If batsman do get hold of him, though, if he again loses some of his spin, if his shoulder goes, Warne might just pack it in.

As much as we all delight in watching him, it is the duty of the England batsmen to hasten that process, or to at least dull his magic. There was no shortage of opinion last week on how the mesmerised top-order might get the better of him. Alec Stewart, who lost his wicket to Warne 14 times in 23 Tests, says they have to go after Warne. 'You can't let him dictate,' he says. 'He loves being in control.'

Michael Atherton says they can pick him but can't play him; Rod Marsh thinks so too; Geoff Boycott insists batsmen aren't reading Warne's variations; Tony Greig says they are, but - like Warne himself - aren't sure exactly how much the ball will or won't turn.

'Also,' says Greig, 'he looks to have developed a second slider, which comes out of a three-quarter wrist turn. This makes it look more like a leg-break and batsmen might have some trouble picking that one.'

Greig reiterated the point he made in a lively exchange with Boycott on TV last weekend that, 'Warne's strengths are in how he turns the ball varying degrees. He bowled one flipper at Lord's and no googlies. So he relies on subtleties.'

Pietersen, with his long levers and no fear of failure, distils all that advice and does his own, simple thing: he slogs selectively. He was the only batsman to consistently get to the pitch of the ball against Warne at Lord's, hitting hard through the line to leg. Bell tried charging him a couple of times, but was done up by his straight one, the slider; Andrew Flintoff, similarly, failed to read it.

As in life, so in cricket. Nearly everyone struggles to understand the bleached enigma from Ferntree Gully.