Off the ball: Warne should be pilloried

By DAVID LEGGAT

One thing you cannot accuse cricket's World Cup of being is boring.

So far we've had upsets on the field, sledging allegations leading to threats to take legal action, a captain being removed from the crease by an angry umpire for bowling beamers, ugly verbal exchanges, thrilling batsmanship, two teams refusing to play games because they didn't fancy the venue - and Warney.

And that's just the first week.

What nauseates me most about Shane Warne's banishment from southern Africa for testing positive to banned diuretics is the almost sycophantic support for the Victorian leg-spinner from team-mates (possibly understandable) and opponents (less so).

The general gist of this has been: poor old Warney/he's a good guy, I'm sure it's a mix-up/let's hope the B test is negative and he can return to the cup/we're sad to hear the news/he's just made a small mistake.

Warne is a wonderful bowler and appears to be, based on the handful of occasions I've loosely been in his company, an amiable bloke in that knockabout, larrikin way Australians tend to cherish.

In this instance, he has also been, at best, unbelievably stupid.

In these days, there is a rule writ large and rammed home in all top-level sport: do not take medication that has not been approved.

When Warne took a pill offered by his mother, he broke that rule.

Yesterday's SuperSport recalled that after three Bulgarian weightlifters had tested positive for diuretics during the Sydney Olympics three years ago, they were stripped of their medals and the entire weightlifting squad were thrown out of the Games.

Australian approbation was severe. It was the same offence - albeit perhaps in more severe doses - committed by Warne.

Australians do not like drug-taking in sport. I was witness to a remarkable press conference at last year's Commonwealth Games at which their team management tried to explain away the evidence that their most successful pistol shooter, Philip Adams, had been taking banned substances for more than a year.

The scorn and fury of a packed room of Australian journalists had to be seen to be fully appreciated.

Why is it, one prominent journalist asked, that whenever an athlete from another country tests positive he or she is vilified, and when one of ours turns the marker red there is always an excuse?

Warne's statements since the event have been singularly lacking in any remorse for his actions, as if either he doesn't think he has done anything wrong, or he doesn't understand what he has done to his own reputation and his team's cup ambitions - although the manner of their win over Pakistan this week suggests he may not be missed anyway.

SuperSport featured a column by former Hampshire county captain Mark Nicholas, who now writes for the British Daily Telegraph, in which he remarked at the Australian Cricket Board's speedy reaction on Warne.

He asked why the ACB had chosen "to so ruthlessly expose their greatest asset," and wondered "is there something we don't know?"

Time will tell on that score and the ACB does have previous form when it comes to covering up its players' indiscretions.

The Warne and Mark Waugh money-from-bookmakers incident is one example. The board knew for several years what had happened and quietly fined them a relatively meagre amount without public censure.

For my money, Warne - assuming the B sample is negative, and don't hold your breath for any other outcome - deserves the red card, partly for breaking the rules and partly for the message he has sent.

Sympathy? Save it for someone who deserves it.


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