Success and controversies chased Shane Warne in equal measure in his career. (Reuters)
Former Australian spin wizard Shane Warne was, without doubt, one of the greatest cricketers in the history of cricket. Despite a highly successful career on field, it wasn’t all plain sailing for the leg-spinner who took over 1,000 wickets in international cricket.
From testing positive for a banned substance before the start of the 2003 Cricket World Cup to his tiffs with former captains like Steve Waugh and not to forget his several affairs which made Page 3 headlines, Warne has seen it all.
Now on the latest episode of talk show titled ‘A Week with Warnie’ on Fox Cricket, the 50-year-old opened up about past controversies.
“I live in the moment so sometimes you don’t think about the consequences and that was probably most of my trouble. I didn’t think what the consequences were or what effect it would have on other people.”
“It was a selfish thing. I did what I wanted to do, and that got me into a bit of trouble,” Warne said.
“I’m not proud of all of my decisions. I made some horrible mistakes and choices with things. But I was always true to myself and that’s what I’m proud of today. Some of the things were really hard to take. I let my family down, I embarrassed my children … but that’s something I have to live with.”
However, he does have remorse in life.
“But for all of those bad choices I’ve also been very proud of all the good things I’ve done. I’ve done a lot of good things but sometimes people like to harp on about the bad things because it’s a better headline.”
Warne also said that the success that followed his 1993 ripping ‘ball of the century’ with which he bowled Mike Gatting had a massive influence on his life.
“I was 23 when that happened. I remember going to the Windmill Pub in London, we were staying at the Westbury Hotel 100 yards up the road … and I went for a pint with Merv (Hughes),” he says.
“And when I came out there was, without a word of a lie, probably 25-30 photographers just taking pictures. The next day was about ‘Shane Warne was at the pub’. I was getting critiqued about what I was wearing, I had ’10 things you don’t know about Shane Warne’ and I’m reading it going, ‘that’s not true, I didn’t know that about me!”