Public Warning

News coming my way regarding the Shane Warne saga seems to be taking a positive turn . . . pardon the pun.

New issues have come to light which may enable the greatest spinner of all time to make a sudden trip back to South Africa, or Bulawayo for that matter and strengthen what so far appears to be a tournament winning unit.

Allow me to backtrack a little to revisit the reasons why Shane headlined last week in the World Cup’s biggest ever shock.

Shane tested positive for a banned substance commonly known as a fluid tablet that was given to him by, of all people, his mother. The timing was just prior to his reappearance in the green and gold in the VB finals against England.

We are all aware that Warne is partial to the odd big night out and he had one planned a couple of days prior to his comeback game. His mother, fearing that he would not look his best in a planned television interview that following morning, insisted that he swallow a diuretic to improve his appearance. Shane did so and suddenly threw his career into jeopardy.

Immediately we can conclude the following. Shane is guilty of an obsession with his appearance and therefore guilty of vanity. He is also guilty of not checking the rulebook regarding the use of banned substances.

Shane himself will no doubt also admit to an element of stupidity.

His hearing is to be later this week and this will obviously be an extremely anxious time for him.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Shane very well over the last few years and when, at his departing press conference he said “he had never taken performance enhancing drugs and never will”, that was good enough for me.

Think about it, performance-enhancing drugs will not assist his game. He doesn’t want to bowl faster, run faster or jump higher.

There is also the issue of a diuretic being used in the past by some as a masking agent. My information tells me anyway that this tablet is not a capable enough masking agent to hide any illegal rehabilitation drug.

To support my argument, the following is an extract from the respected Professor Graeme Addison who is the author of MIMS Drugs in Sport 2003:

“As time has gone on and doping has become more sophisticated and difficult to detect, many naive users of common medication and nutritional supplements have been penalized while real offenders, who deliberately use drugs and conceal it have escaped the net.

"The World Anti –Doping Agency is very concerned about exactly this and has recently published a first draft, which it hopes to introduce for the 2004 Olympics, which will allow a “code of good conduct”.

Most importantly a section on “exceptional circumstances” provides for athletes to prove they did not intentionally take a banned drug”.

A recent case in this country that Shane’s legal team are aware of could also provide an important precedent.

South Africa’s world-class pole-vaulter Okkert Brits tested positive for the banned substance Ephedrine following a local athletics meeting in Potchefstroom on January 31. He was immediately exonerated. Under IAAF rules for Ephedrine, a first offence gets a public warning with a second offence getting an automatic two-year ban.

In essence, Okkert’s defence was that he unwittingly took a banned substance.

Parallels can certainly be drawn from this example to provide hope that we can once again be delighted and mesmerized by the sensational skill that Shane possesses……during this World Cup.

It would be sad and unfair not to have that pleasure.