Warne Advices Hansie — Tell Us All

London, April 18: Shane Warne, the Australian player who was among the first to admit taking a bribe (although he did not call it that) fo...

London, April 18: Shane Warne, the Australian player who was among the first to admit taking a bribe (although he did not call it that) for providing "information" to bookies has some advice for Hansie Cronje.

Writing in The Times newspaper, Warne said: "I will say … that Hansie needs to come out and tell us exactly what has happened. That would be best for himself, the rest of the players and the sport itself." Warne who will be playing for Hampshire for the next six months also says, with no sense of irony and certainly with no fear for his own job: "As a general comment, I am also convinced that anybody found guilty of match-fixing should not be in the game. I don’t know of anyone who would disagree."

As one who has benefited from a typical cricket authority inquiry Warne is all praise for the South Africans: "The South Africans have done it exactly right this time by the way they responded to what must have come like a bolt out of the blue. They needed to act decisively and they did just that by setting up a full investigation. It is the duty of everybody who knows something to co-operate so the matter is cleared up once and for all, rather than having dribs and drabs come out over the years ahead. But let’s wait until the inquiry has finished before making judgements."

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And the problem with the game, says Warne is bad publicity. This singular cricketing mind concludes: "With all the bad publicity, I can understand why people think the game might be in a bit of a mess. On a broader picture, that’s just not the case. What impressed me in South Africa was the way the public there really rallied behind the team. They want to move on, to think about the future. The crowd for the last game at Johannesburg was a record for the ground – so much for the public supposedly turning their backs."

Warne will be writing regularly for The Times, so we should expect more weighty advice from this voice of experience.