December 22, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 30, 1427

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SYDNEY, Dec 21: Shane Warne has described his life as a soap opera but for once the Australian leg-spinner was underplaying his hand. His turbulent career was more like a Hollywood blockbuster.

Arguably the most influential cricketer since the late Don Bradman, Warne's life followed the most unlikely script, captivating and polarising sports fans around the world.

From humble beginnings in suburban Melbourne, Warne, who announced on Thursday he would quit international cricket next month, became one of the greatest players the game has seen and revitalised the dying art of wrist-spin bowling.

His brilliance as a player is without dispute. A sharp slip fielder and underrated batsmen with a highest Test score of 99, Warne's real flair was with the ball. He holds the world record for the most Test wickets (699) and has been at the forefront of Australia's domination of world cricket for the last 15 years.

He tormented, and occasionally made fools of, the greatest batsmen in history with his wonderful bag of tricks, including the flipper, the googly, the slider, the top spinner and his stock ball, the leg break.

Warne was able to make a cricket ball do things that no-one had imagined possible while introducing millions of new fans to a game steeped in tradition and locked in conservatism.

A natural showman with a sense of theatre, Warne saved his best performances for the biggest stages – the Ashes and the World Cup –and was never far from the spotlight, whether he was on the field or off it.

His personal life was full of turbulence. His dream of skippering Australia ended in 2000 when he was stripped of the vice-captaincy for sending lewd text messages to an English nurse, and he separated from his wife Simone in 2005 following media reports of his infidelities.

He was fined by the Australian Cricket Board in 1995 after admitting taking money from a man associated with an Indian bookmaker for providing information about pitches and weather, although the case was hushed up for three years.

Warne was sent home from South Africa on the eve of the 2003 World Cup after failing a drugs test that earned him a 12-month ban. Controversy followed Warne everywhere but throughout it all his performances on the pitch never waned as he mastered cricket's most difficult and misunderstood craft.

He made an inauspicious start to his career, taking one wicket for 150 on his Test debut in January 1992 against India, but provided the first real clue into what was ahead when he single-handedly bowled Australia to victory against the mighty West Indies later in the year.

It was on the 1993 tour of England when the cricket world knew for certain that a genius had arrived as Warne bamboozled England captain Mike Gatting with his first Ashes delivery, later dubbed “the ball of the century.”

Gatting shook his head in amazement as the ball dipped, turned and fizzed past his bat and crashed into his off stump, but he was not the last batsmen to be deceived by Warne's skill and cunning.

A year later in Melbourne Warne became the first player in over 90 years to take an Ashes hat-trick, and in 1999, he was named player of the match in Australia's World Cup final win over Pakistan.

In 2000, he broke great fast bowler Dennis Lillee's Australian record of 355 Test wickets and, in 2004, he snatched the world record from Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

Warne was Australia's best player on their 2005 Ashes tour, capturing 40 wickets in a beaten team, and went on to break Lillee's world record of 85 for most Test victims in a calendar year.

At 37, Warne was showing no signs of slowing down or losing interest in the game and his performances during the current Ashes series have been as good as ever.

He destroyed England's batting line-up to provide Australia with an extraordinary last-day victory in Adelaide and captured the series-clinching wicket for Australia to regain the Ashes in the third Test.

With a 700th Test wicket beckoning in front of his home crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Warne announced he was ready to take his final curtain call.—Reuters