Warne winner

THE TRANSITION from feted sportsman to ex-sportsman has claimed many victims. Alcoholism, addiction to gambling and divorce are among the pitfalls that can await as a star used to the disciplines of a dressing room or training regime adjusts to a "civilian" life. Some have even descended into criminality and the horror of a jail cell.

So what is it like when a superstar gives up the acclaim of the arena? Tough, we should assume. Or maybe not. Maybe the mental strength that makes them a winner also assists them in later life. It might just depend on the individual.

There have been few bigger name retirements in global sport than Shane Warne's in early 2007. For 15 years he had been The One: the man who had revived a dying art, the greatest wicket-taker in the game, the most celebrated cricketer of his generation and possibly a few others and certainly the most tabloid-friendly. From the moment he bowled Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993 with the "ball of the century", the one that announced his love affair with one of the most cherished rivalries in world sport, his life became public property. It was not always a comfortable relationship.

And yet two years on from hanging up his cricket boots he seems to be thriving.

The advent of the Indian Premier League has helped. It has kept him in the game he clearly loves and cherishes, has provided an all-important outlet for his competitive nature and has maintained some of the adulation and adoration that he had become accustomed to.

But even without that there is a suspicion that Warne, the master showman, would have adjusted handsomely. Of course in Melbourne he is still the 'King'. That will not change and so his home town provides a comfort zone but Warne has always needed more. He could have simply sashayed from the field to the commentary box as so many have before. The money is good, the life easy but as he stated in the days after his final appearance for Australia: "If I wanted to do all the travelling to matches I might as well keep playing."

Instead he gathered his managers, James Erskine from Australia and Michael Cohen from the UK, in Melbourne for his final Boxing Day Test and thrashed out a plan for his life after cricket. Most importantly it involved spending time with his three children.

"When I retired that was the main thing I wanted to do," said Warne. "I had spent (so many] years being at home for a bit and then disappearing for months on tour and then coming back for a bit and then going off again that I really wanted to spend some time with them. It's well known that my marriage finished but between Simone and I the kids have always been the most important thing. I loved it, I spent time with them at home and generally was a normal dad for a bit.

"I knew there would be work opportunities for me, the problem was to sift through them and pick the ones that interested me more than the money. I wanted my work to be things that I enjoyed and that can change every year so really I have loads of options but even now time with the kids is most important."

Those options have included a roving coaching role for Cricket Australia, the Aussie cricket board; a continuation of his relationships from his cricket career such as his promotion of telephone audio production company Messages on Hold; a lucrative sponsorship with Victoria Bitter which has a cartoon "Warnie" emblazoned on beer cartons and tins across Australia; and a deepening passion for poker cemented with a two-year deal with online poker site 888.

And he has started commentating, firstly the Melbourne and Sydney Tests for Channel 9 and this summer for Sky Sports in England for the last four Ashes Tests. Importantly they are all done on his terms. "I enjoy commentating and hope I say it straight but yes, it has to work around my schedule rather than be my schedule," he said.

"I'm actually not doing the first Test this summer in Cardiff because I'll be in (Las] Vegas for the world series of poker."

Clearly cricket is only a part of his life now. The Ashes, the series he dominated and made him so famous, has to accommodate his poker ambitions.

"The poker is important to me now," said Warne. "I've always played cards and loved a bit of a gamble – I used to own a horse in Melbourne – and I play about six events for 888 around the world each year, including the world series. That was on the must-do list so to play last summer was awesome. I got through the first days and then struck out in 658th, only 50 from where the prize money started. I think there were 6,000 starters so that wasn't bad for a first time. I hope to do better this month.

"I played in the dressing room with the Hampshire boys and then back home a bloke called Joe Hachem became famous when he won the world series and picked up about $7.5 million. We became friends so now he has been coaching me, we play with some other guys – the AFL footie players – and we have started a charity tournament for my foundation."

Warne is a natural enthusiast. Throughout his career he has offered any young spin bowler his time and expertise. He is genuinely willing to help, which suggests he would make a good coach.

"No thoughts of that yet," said Warne. "I can coach anyway but individuals just like Terry Jenner coached me, and I also coached Rajasthan Royals don't forget."

Jeremy Snape, the former England player and current sports psychologist to the South African side, works with Warne for the Royals.

"I knew he hated meetings and all the official stuff that goes with coaches but the thing is Warnie spends more time talking about and analysing cricket than most coaches," said Snape. "Where some use laptops and video analysis in team meetings, Warnie sits down at dinner or in a bar and talks cricket. It is relaxed but he thinks so deeply about the game that players around him are drawn in. Sometimes in a meeting a player will zone out – it's just another meeting – but Warnie engages people over a long lunch and a few of you have a discussion or a debate and without realising it the team has had a real in-depth meeting. It's just not called a meeting."

How typical that the master of deception with a ball spinning from his thick fingers is equally adept at camouflage off the pitch.

Where there is no spin is in his charity work. His own foundation, the Shane Warne Foundation has donated more than $400,000 to children in Australia and continues to prosper.

He is not the only former player to have a charitable foundation; Steve Waugh's is hugely involved in the sub-continent and Glenn McGrath has one in honour of his wife Jane, who died of cancer. Three intensely competitive Australian cricketers who are equally keen to help, it fits perfectly their "work hard, play hard" creed.

I helped organise a charity poker tournament in London for Warne's foundation and have experienced first hand how hard he works to raise money. He is hands-on, insistent on knowing even the tiniest details and determined his guests have a fantastic time and are happy to donate. In a room of more than 100 people he did not forget a name despite only meeting some that evening.

" I love the Foundation," said Warne. "There are so many children with terrible diseases that even helping the few we can is the least we can do. I'm just upset we can't help more."

This help was immediately offered in 2004 when the tsunami struck Sri Lanka and last summer when bushfires devastated whole communities in rural Victoria.

Warne was quickly working the phones, deploying his charisma and vault of favours to start fundraising and organising a big cricket match.

"We flew upstate days after the fires and some of the stories were just well hard to describe," he said. "One guy just stood staring at where his house had been and when someone asked how he felt he just continued looking down and said he'd lost his wife and two of his kids. What can you to say to someone? Nothing. Standing there you're not Shane Warne, ex-cricketer with fame, you are just another father with a knot in your stomach trying not to cry."

Two weeks after that Warne was in England being interviewed by Sky to announce his commentary duties, organising poker events, and hitting the casino in the evening. His diary was full, he was excited about the IPL as Royals were the holders, every person he met asked him about the Ashes and his life seemed to be moving at fast forward, just as it had done since his youth.

He calls himself a businessman now. He probably is but his business is being Shane Warne.

Every Hollywood agent wants their star to become so big they morph into being a brand. Warne has accomplished that. On the cricket field in the IPL, on the poker table, in the commentary box or caricatured on the side of a box of cold ones, Warne's life has continued at breakneck pace. He wouldn't have it any other way.

And come the Lord's Test will there be a twinge of regret?

"No, don't think so," he said firmly. "I've done my bit. My cricket is now the Royals in the IPL, part of my life but there's plenty other things to do as well. It's the world series later this month, now that I'd love to win."

Warne talking about winning. Maybe nothing has changed after all.

HIGHS AND LOWS OF THE KING OF SPIN
THE GOOD

The Ball of the Century. The Gatting Ball. That Ball. On day two of the first Test of the 1993 Ashes at Old Trafford, on his first delivery, Warne bamboozled Mike Gatting with a leg break that eluded bat but not bails.

Warne went on to break a series of records: in 2006 at Melbourne he achieved his 700th Test wicket.

THE BAD

In the mid-90s, the "John the Bookmaker" scandal saw Warne accused of accepting money from a bookmaker in return for pitch and weather information. Warne was sent home from the 2003 Cricket World Cup after a drug test earlier in the year returned a positive result for a banned diuretic.

THE UGLY

In 2000, Warne was stripped of the Australian vice-captaincy after it was reported he inundated a British nurse with text messages. In 2005 he split up with his wife Simone Callahan. In 2007, Warne and his wife were reported to be getting back together but they split again after he accidentally sent a text message meant for another woman.