A Warne-ing

We might have thought we had seen/heard the last of Shane Warne after all those years of torment, starting so dramatically with the Ball of the Century that dismissed Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993.

Well, it aint necessarily so.

Warne will be writing and talking and generally making a thorough nuisance of himself all the way through the Ashes series. In fact he has started already.

He writes weekly in The Times - whose No.2 cricket specialist Richard Hobson ghosted his autobiography - and no doubt he will be on BBC radio and Sky TV and Channel Nine when the action begins.

Warne was on BBC Five Live this morning, saying that while Andy Flower was a "good man" his appointment would not mean any loss of sleep in the Australian camp who would be more concerned about the quality of the players. Does he believe that? Maybe.

You are never sure about Aussies, are you? I first went there in 1982 with the Bob Willis tour and thought "wonderful country, wonderful people." By my third or fourth visit I realised that the people are like that vast continent which has an impressive outer edge and nothing in the middle.

A huge generalisation, you'll think. Yes, but intellectual Australia hides in Melbourne, mostly round the university, reads The Age and has nothing to do with the outsize majority of the 20 million or so inhabitants who think a good time consists entirely of watching the "footie" and the cricket, drinking a few bottles of "grog" and sneering at the laundry habits of any nearby "Poms".

Beware. It is not the whole story. There are cunning Aussies too and one of them used to bowl the nastiest collection of leg breaks, googlies, top spinners and whatever he cared to call his other - mostly straight on - deliveries and who is now trumpeting Australian propaganda whenever he can find anyone to listen.

If he had not smoked while advertising the merits of quitting, texted one fewer girl and not put on so much girth we might not have had to debate whether he was the best captain Australia never had.

He is still the greatest spin bowler the planet has ever seen. If you have any doubt, ask him. I think I know what the answer will be.