During his playing days, Shane Warne was a showstopper on the field. However, he often used to find himself in controversies because of his off-field conduct.
Among the long list of his controversial act, Warne’s bender following the second day of Australia’s crucial Fourth Test against England in the 2005 Ashes is the most infamous one. At that time, it was reported as the secret sex session that broke Warne.
Giving a new insight about the incident in his new book No Spin, Warne admitted to have broken rule against partying in the middle of Test matches.
Warne recalled the evening following the second’s play during the unforgettable Nottingham Test. The 49-year-old wrote it was the only time he has ever partied so hard in the middle of a Test match that he felt unable to play the next day. Warne’s book only mentions that he decided to “get on the piss” — and that it ruined him the next day when Australia had to bat in response to England’s first innings score of 477.
While it goes into detail about his drinking session, the book doesn’t reveal anything about his involvement in an all-night sex fest the night before the third day’s play.
As per the English media reports in 2005, Julia Reynolds, an English spy, alleged to have partied with Warne during a five-hour sex session the same night.
According to The Sun, Reynolds said she had left Warne exhausted after an all-night sex session the day before he was dismissed for a golden duck in the first innings.
“I wasn’t that surprised he was out for nought because when he left me he looked pretty exhausted. I guess you could say I’ve done my bit for England,” she had told The Mirror in 2005.
Warne disclosed in the book he was not in a state to play the Nottingham nail-biter.
“Only once in my career did I get on the piss during a Test match and let it affect my cricket the next day,” Warne writes. “That once was Trent Bridge in 2005.”
The legendary spinner admitted that his batting in the first innings was “embarrassing”.
“I couldn’t see the bloody thing because I’d been up until five or six in the morning and spent most of the day nodding off in the changing room.
“When Simon Jones bowled a normal length ball, I just spooned it up in the air like I was a clubby (club level cricketer). Embarrassing. It was the one time in the series when the pressure of everything that summer had got to me a bit and I desperately needed to let my hair down. Not good.
“I just sort of sat there thinking, ‘Please make us follow on Vaughany (England captain Michael Vaughan), I need some sleep. And if you do, we bat the second time round, I promise to all Australia I will win us the game.”
(With inputs from news.com.au)
