Fat Boy Spin turns new model bowler as maturity and ambition set the tone

Shane Warne Interview: Greatest wrist-spinner is relishing a fresh challenge, and that's bad news for England. Stephen Brenkley talks to him

Shane Warne has been in town. You probably failed to notice him spinning by. He is as easy to miss as a ripping leg-break pitching two feet outside leg and clipping off. Warne is a new man, precisely 82 kilograms of new man, although as that was a couple of days ago the number might have diminished to 80. On the other hand, since he is touring England with Merv Hughes, it might also have sneaked up a bit.

The greatest wrist-spin bowler of all, one of the five cricketers of the 20th century, a genius of bowling in any terms, has slimmed and toned dramatically. It might be pushing it a bit to describe him as wraithlike, but he is definitely different.

The cheeks, which not long ago looked as though they had an ocean of pizza and chips permanently stuffed inside them, now have a sculpted look; the discernible paunch, which once flapped over his flannels and sometimes rotated with the ball, has been banished. Boy, is Warney serious.

"I've lost 10 or 12 kilos," he said between stops on his nationwide tour, a combined job to promote his autobiography and fulfil a series of joint speaking engagements with his mate and fellow larrikin Hughes. "I just have to look at food or a pint of beer and I put on a kilo. I'm 32 and I looked at the international programme and what lay aheadand it's an unbelievable schedule.

"I've been training really hard, dieting, cutting out butter, minimal cheese and pizzas. I still have chips occasionally, but not with every meal; all the things that taste good have disappeared. No beer, I'm only drinking wine. I've started to get into wine, I'm trying to understand a bit more about the wine industry, what's good, what isn't and why. I'm into fruit, three litres of water a day, soups, salads and a pretty strong fitness regime with lots of aerobic stuff and weights. I'm actually getting some muscles, which I'm starting to enjoy."

In old money, where Warne was once 14st 11lb, he is now 12st 12lb, lighter than at any time since he was playing grade Australian Rules football for the Melbourne side, St Kilda, when he was 19, and, he mused, almost as fit. This is probably less a conversion on the Road to Damascus scale than it is terrible news for England on the Pathway To Ashes and pretty awful for the rest of the world En Route To World Cup. Reinventing your body at the age of 32, when you already have 450 Test wickets and 278 one-day ones, seems a trifle unfair.

But anybody with a passing interest in sport, let alone the greatest of games itself, will be grateful that the peroxide blond from Ferntree Gully has adopted such a regime. It demonstrates his desire, nay his determination, to sustain his career, a fact we should relish. 'Twas not ever thus.

Warne came close to giving it away, as Australians say, after the World Cup three years ago. He says as much in his extremely readable, albeit predictable, book, the paperback version of which is just out (Shane Warne – My Autobiography, Coronet, £7.99). After Australia's triumph, in which he played an integral role as man of the match in both semi-final and final, he told Allan Border that he wanted to retire. Border, one of his mentors and a profound influence, counselled him to wait and see. Warne waited, we're all seeing.

He was unhappy, frustrated with his bowling after operations on knee and shoulder. But he had been brought low, ultimately, by fame. He had had enough and he was not going to take it any more. Through a potent mixture of his uncanny talent, a naturally open personality, an innate laddishness and an instinct for living dangerously, Warne has always aroused intense interest. It began with the 3 for 11 he took to win a match against Sri Lanka in his fourth Test match, burgeoned when he took 7 for 52 against West Indies shortly after and was sealed by The Ball, his legendary first delivery in an Ashes Test match in 1993, to Mike Gatting, which indeed pitched two feet outside leg and hit off.

The bleached blond hair, the unathletic physique (allied, it should be said, to positively athletic movement at slip) and his self-confessed liking for the beach, a beer and a fag have only exaggerated his profile. Then there have been the scrapes.

There was the naïve receipt of a gift of money from a bookie (no suggestion, it should always be emphasised, of match-fixing, although it was further, unsubstantiated, innuendo during the 1999 World Cup that almost pushed him to the brink). There was the row over photographs of him smoking in New Zealand when he was being sponsored to give up.

There was the spat with a fleeting Australian team-mate, Scott Muller, about whom Warne was supposed to have been heard saying in a match "Can't throw, can't bowl" and then was found not to have done. There was the suggestive call he made to the mobile phone of a woman he had met in a bar during his time with Hampshire, revelations of which cost him Australia's vice-captaincy and perhaps any chance of ever being captain.

Some of these stories have a semblance of truth in them, although Warne rails against them. All of them go to show, as he readily concedes, that he has human frailties. None would amount to a hill of beans if it wasn't Warne and it wasn't a crazy world. He still refuses to be wary of publicity or the press, although he bridled slightly at being reminded of some of the tales. "I've talked about it so many times before, mate, so I'm looking to the future." Each time he sits down at yet another press conference he has taken to comparing his life to a soap opera. In a sense, he might even be slightly miffed that there has lately been a period of relative quiet.

"I suppose I've grown up a bit, matured, got experiences of life," he said. "I think I've certainly picked up on how to handle things. No one teaches you how to handle certain situations, you try to do it the best way you can and sometimes you do it wrong. But I've tried to learn from every-thing and it's made me a better person.

"Being in the limelight all the time has its ups and downs. But the ups always outweigh the downs. It would be nice occasionally to go to a pub and dance on the bar, let your hair down and nobody know who you are. Unfortunately, that's the way it is." The only wonder perhaps is that, Warne being Warne, he has not danced on a bar somewhere. But he is the type of bloke whose glass would be half full whether he was the world's best leg-spinner or millionth best.

"I've had opportunities, meeting the Sean Connerys of the world, and you wouldn't do that. Playing cricket at the highest level there are responsibilities, the sooner you deal with it and accept it the better. Simone [his wife] gets annoyed sometimes when you have people ringing the doorbell at one, two in the morning and the kids are asleep. Yobbos I suppose, the minority of the public who want to make life uncomfortable for you."

One hopes that the former James Bond was as grateful and gracious at meeting Warne as Warne was at meeting him.

Warne is clearly delighted with his form in the past year. During Australia's defeat in India in early 2001 he was given some long-handle treatment. Had the rotator cuff in the right shoulder and the spinning finger, the third on the right hand, finally worn out? How long would it be before he retired? The usual questions. In 14 Tests since the start of the 2001 Ashes he has taken 74 wickets at 26, in 19 one-dayers he has had 26 wickets and conceded a little over four runs an over.

But it is his batting which reveals the full brightness in his gleaming white teeth and sparkling green eyes. Hardly needed during last summer's Ashes, he had a good winter against South Africa and New Zealand, averaging 34 and coming tantalisingly close to making his maiden century. He was 99 in Perth when Daniel Vettori snaffled him. Of his seven Test fifties, five have come in the past two years, three last winter.

"I think I'm finally back now to the way I used to bowl, which is very, very pleasing," he said. "I'm finally beginning to understand my bowling a lot more, how to get batsmen out rather than just bowl big, turning leg-breaks. I've been making runs too. Throughout my career people have told me I've underachieved with the bat and that I should be an all-rounder. I've started to realise I can bat a bit."

Actually, he has now scored more runs without making a hundred than any Test player in history. When he was in South Africa in the winter somebody sent him an email to inform him of the fact, although they cheered him up by adding that he was one of only four players to have scored 2,000 runs and taken 400 wickets (Kapil Dev, Sir Richard Hadlee and Wasim Akram are the others).

Warne still has ambitions aplenty. A Test century (maybe any century) is one, and while he will not place a figure on wickets, 600 must have entered his thoughts. He suspects the captaincy has passed him by since he was deprived of the deputy's job. His tenure will probably be restricted to the one-day triangular tournament against Sri Lanka and England in 1999-2000 when he deputised for then-injured Steve Waugh, displayed a pleasing attacking bent and guided Australia to easy victory.

"I thought the captaincy brought out the best in me," he said. "I've said I'd love to have the opportunity again, but if not so be it. It's not something I'm chasing or something I regret." There was perhaps just the tiniest trace of regret in his voice.

He wants to play county cricket again for Hampshire, the club he represented in 2000, "somewhere down the track" and could envisage a life of six months in England and six in Australia. He likes the English, and not just because he has 118 of their wickets at 22 runs each. After his Hampshire experience he put down one of his most admired cricketers as Peter Hartley and said the world had better look out for Giles White's leg-spin.

He has had a high old time these past few days with Merv, who is driving him round – "A wonderful person, a marvellous cricketer with a big heart and he's keeping the beer industry in business." Warne has also promised himself a playing season of his truly beloved Aussie Rules football before he is too old. Fitting it all in will be his biggest trick since his zooter.

This Australian summer he has the Ashes and the World Cup to defend. It might be kidology, but he talked up England. "If they have any chance whatsoever this is the best chance they're gonna have in a long time. They must keep their attitude and commitment going. As long as they don't put us on too high a pedestal." As though it could be avoided. "We're the best, and while you've got to try to beat the best there's nothing wrong with being second either. Being second is good." Not, Shane, where the Ashes are concerned.

As he left for a pressing engagement the new man lit a fag. Any self-respecting New Lad would have wanted to hug him. All of England can only pray that chips, pizza and beer were somehow crucial to his powers.

Biography: Shane Warne

Born: 13 September 1969, Victoria.

Played for: Victoria, Hampshire, Australia.

Test debut: v India, Sydney, Third Test 1991-92.

Test career: Matches: 101. Bowling – Wickets: 450. Average: 26.52. Best figures: 8-71. Five-wicket innings: 21. Ten-wicket matches: 5. Catches: 83. Batting – Runs: 2,091. Average: 16.59. HS: 99.

One-day internationals: Debut v New Zealand, Wellington 1992-93. Matches: 181. Bowling – Wickets: 278. Average: 25.67. Best figures: 5-33. Five-wicket hauls: 1. Catches: 74. Batting – Runs: 946. Average: 12.78. Highest score: 55.

First-class: Bowling – Wickets: 803. Av: 26.58. Best figures: 8-71. Catches: 153. Batting – Runs: 3,930. Average: 17.62.