Warne: Facing the ugly truth in mirror (25 October 1998)

25 October 1998

Warne: Facing the ugly truth in mirror

By Scyld Berry

IT has been a busy week for Shane Warne, albeit off the field rather than on it. But that looks like the way it is going to be until Christmas.

On Monday he gave his first interview to The Mirror, after signing up with them until the World Cup (for a sum not remote from 100,000 Australian dollars). Over lemonade and several cigarettes at a cafe near his home in the Brighton suburb of Melbourne, he admitted: "I have to face the ugly truth" - that he will not be fit for the first Test.

Details of his right shoulder operation in May were also revealed: cartilage had to be sewn back on to the bone and four screws inserted. He had been in constant pain for the previous 18 months, unable to sleep properly.

On Wednesday, therefore, he could only watch as Victoria took on Tasmania in their opening Sheffield Shield match. He met the Australian chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns, was told the next five years were more important than the next five months and, after consultation with his agent Austin Robertson, agreed to a cut in his ACB salary.

More encouraging signs came on Thursday when, for the first time post-op, he bowled not with a tennis ball but a cricket ball: 12 deliveries with some spin but without immediate pain - good news to tell Darren Gough on the phone on Friday.

Australian commentators have considered it inconceivable that Warne will be playing in the first two Tests, and improbable that he will make the third in Adelaide although Victoria coach John Scholes claimed Warne could be bowling normally within a fortnight. Could such disinformation be part of a greater plan?

If out of the first three encounters, that would leave the Melbourne Test starting on Boxing Day, and the Sydney Test: back-to-backs, in themselves 'a big ask' as the Aussies would say, even for a fully fit bowler.

An unbeaten century for St Kilda against Melbourne yesterday further fuelled rumours of an imminent return. Closer analysis showed Warne's name to be missing from the bowling figures, although a busy week ahead is guaranteed.

The ACB are flying him to Perth for a press conference on Thursday, so keen to hear his views are the English press. Warne's verbal delivery, at any rate, stays unaffected.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)