WORLD CUP MOMENTS NO.14: Shane Warne's drugs ban

The Australian legspinner was sent home on the eve of the holders' opening game and was banned for a year after breaching the ACB's drug code

In no.29 of our World Cup Moments, we looked back at Shane Warne’s man-of-the-match display against Pakistan in the 1999 final in England.

However, in this instalment we look at how the Australian legspinner was in the news for all the wrong reasons four years later in February 2003, as he almost derailed Australia’s hopes of securing back-to-back World Cup success.

The 2003 event was generally overshadowed by events off the pitch, namely the boycotts of England and New Zealand to matches in Zimbabwe and Kenya respectively.

England’s absence from Zimbabwe was then criticised by former Cricket South Africa president Percy Sonn during an embarrassing drunken tirade at a match between India and the Netherlands.

However, the news that caused the biggest shockwaves through the cricket community was of Warne, who was sent home just a couple of days after the tournament had started after testing positive for a banned substance.

The 1999 hero had ceased all talk of being overweight, a topic of sporadic debates in the media until 2002, by working hard on his fitness, and he had overcome the problem with his troublesome shoulder five weeks before the tournament after dislocating it against England to try and spin his side to glory once again.

^{Warne arrives for his press conference to announce the news}

Announcing a couple of weeks before the start of the tournament that the event in South Africa would represent his last outings in coloured clothing, his participation was more fleeting than that after being called by the Australian Sports Drugs Agency two days before the holders’ opening match against Pakistan to inform him that he had tested positive for Moduretic.

A diuretic which is widely used in treating high blood pressure, the prescription drug, which Warne admitted to taking, was banned for its property of being able to dilute traces of steroids in the urine.

Such was the gravity of the issue that a snap team meeting on the eve of the game was called and ominously begun by manager Steve Bernard, who said: "Warnie has got something to say to us all."

Pin-drop silence is not a common occurrence in Australian cricket gatherings, but the likes of Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath sat and stared in disbelief as Warne detailed the events of the previous 24 hours to them.

"Go and talk amongst yourselves, get over it. Come back at 9pm and erase it from your memory because we've got a game to win," Ponting said afterwards. Some things never change then.

However, this was an unprecedented occurrence for Warne, whose return to Australia to undergo further tests was preceded by a humbling press conference in which he stated: "I am shocked and absolutely devastated that the test sample indicated a presence of a prohibited substance, because I have not taken performance-enhancing drugs."

^{Australia fans publicly backed Warne in their opener against Pakistan}

Further protestations of innocence in an ACB anti-doping hearing from Warne and his mother, who gave her son the tablet on January 22 allegedly to improve his appearance in front of the cameras when announcing his retirement from ODI cricket, did little to impress the three-man committee, who described their evidence as "vague, unsatisfactory and inconsistent" when banning Warne from competitive action for 12 months.

The most alarming assertion from Warne was that he had never read the ACB playing conditions, and while doubts remain about the credibility of that and his supposed obliviousness to the contents of the tablet, the universal response to his actions was one of recklessness.

"As much as the boys are right behind Warney 100%, for someone of his experience, he should have known the risks. Shane has brought this on himself," teammate McGrath wrote in his newspaper column.

That rashness continued upon his return home when he stated "No, I didn't [listen to the drug experts]. Whether, rightly or wrongly, I don't read much, I don't take a lot of interest in the outside world. I just play cricket."

Nevertheless, while Warne was hired by Nine Network as commentator, Australia regained their cool and emerged victorious in all 11 games during the World Cup, the last of which saw them thrash India by 125 runs in the final.

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