KEY POINTS:
Australian cricket legend Shane Warne was always more photogenic with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
The champion leg-spinner, who yesterday announced his retirement from Test cricket at the end of this Ashes series, was as much a target for the cameras off the field as he was
on it.
His soap-opera style antics - extra-marital flings, racy text messages, dieting pills and a penchant for foul language - have led to many public setbacks, some in New Zealand.
At a game in Wellington in 2000, Daniel Bassett, then 15, snapped Warne in an unflattering pose that would have made anti-smoking lobbyists cringe.
Warne was unimpressed. He had been caught out the previous year with a similar photo- taken at a time when a pharmaceutical company was paying him A$200,000 to quit smoking and promote its nicotine chewing gum.
He didn't want Mr Bassett's picture to see the light of day but could not wrest the camera from him.
"So he took Daniel's bag - a little backpack with his lunch in it - and said he wasn't giving it back until he had the camera," said Shannon Nightingale, who was with Daniel at the time.
"He said he was going to get it developed in Australia and take out that photo and we thought: 'No you won't'."
Shannon said Warne swore at them, calling them names unfit to print, but they gave as good as they got, alluding to the bowler's generous waistline, among other things.
The stand-off was only resolved after the police, at the request of Shannon's father, intervened and told Warne to return the bag. "Warne wasn't too happy about it.
"We got the photos developed and gave them to some newspapers."
The skirmish made headlines on both sides of the Tasman and Warne was suitably embarrassed.
He offered the pair an olive branch by meeting them a fortnight later while he was in Wellington for another game, but Mr Nightingale brushed that off as "PC on his behalf. We didn't get an apology".
It wasn't the only time Warne added to his notorious reputation with a Kiwi flirtation.
Model Coralie Eichholtz, from Christchurch, boasted in Britain's News of the World newspaper of a three-in-a-bed romp with the cricketer in May this year.
The tabloid, running the story under the headline "Shane on you", showed revealing photographs of the women and a grainy slideshow of images of the raunchy romp.
Warne wore a pair of Playboy underpants and brandished a giant inflatable sex toy during the escapade and was even said to have texted Eichholtz during a game.
Despite that, Warne's on-field ability was rarely in doubt - he went on to take seven wickets for 99 for his county side Hampshire the day after his romp, the paper reported.
Mr Nightingale, like many critics during Warne's colourful career, has always respected him as a player.
"He's incredible what he can do as a player but, as a person, I think he's a bit lost sometimes."
