Warne not to blame for his wicked ways

Sydney, August 12: Shane Warne, praised as a cricket superstar but slammed as a yobbo, says he is not to blame for all the scrapes he has been involved in on and off the field.

The brash blond, undoubtedly the greatest legspinner in the history of Test cricket, attracts controversy like a moth to a flame.

But in his autobiography to be published on Thursday, Warne, 32 in September, argues his innocence.

In 1994, the Australian Cricket Board covered up payments of 4,000 US dollars made by an Indian bookmaker called "John" to both Warne and Mark Waugh for information about the weather, pitch and team selections.

Both players were fined, although the disciplinary action taken by the board was kept secret until exposed by the press in 1998.

Warne says in his book, extracts of which were published by the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend, that he never knowingly accepted money from a bookmaker.

He says Mark Waugh introduced him to his friend "John" after he had lost 5,000 US dollars in a casino in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

"Looking back now, with everything that has emerged during all the investigations in various parts of the world, people might wonder how I could think that a near-stranger was prepared to show such generosity without an ulterior motive," he says.

"At the time, as I've said, I took it at face value."

Warne says "John" rang him a couple of times.

"They were the sort of conversations I might have had with my dad and brother," he says.

Warne later reported then Pakistan captain Salim Malik for offering him 100,000 US dollars to "underperform" in the first Test at Karachi in 1994.

Last year, Warne was pilloried by the British press when it was revealed he had had "dirty" phone conversaations with a nurse while playing county cricket for Hampshire.

Warne says the woman approached him in a nightclub. After he refused her advances, she told him she was a very good talker on the phone.

"It was over a week later when I phoned for the first time," he says.

"What developed next was explicit talk between two consenting adults. She rang back a few days later and the same thing happened.

"I am not claiming any moral high ground, merely stating the facts. People can work out for themselves how private conversations and messages came to be repeated in a newspaper."

The revelations cost Warne the Australian vice-captaincy but he says he was able to save his marriage, and he is unlikely ever to captain his country.