A picture in waiting

What do you think of when you picture Shane Warne? Blond, ruffled locks, face contorted in the act of aggressive appealing? Muscular yet languid delivery stride and release? Intelligent eyes betraying a cunning cricket mind? Pratting about with chips in one hand and a cigarette in the other?

There is no one like Warne in cricket. For the last decade no player has come close to his mix of charisma and talent. Who else has so many iconic images related to him?

Murali's bulging eyes, Brian Lara's arc between body and bat following a thumping cover drive, Andrew Flintoff's arms raised in a celebratory V: all are greedily captured on film, yet it is Warne whom the camera never leaves, always searching for that one moment of inspiration he will inevitably deliver. He is the natural subject of an illustrated autobiography.

Warne says he splits his career into three phases: learning his craft until 1998, a series of injuries that left him struggling for form until 2001, and since then the best form of his career.

Each stage is well photographed - action shots balanced with behind-the-scenes photos - sharing a cigarette with INXS front man Michael Hutchence, being filmed by Australia coach John Buchanan (is anyone immune from being star-struck around Warne?), disembarking from a helicopter in Sri Lanka.

The comedy lies in shots of a young Warne: wearing shorts tighter than a 1980s footballer going to Aussie Rules practice, looking massively uncomfortable in a suit with mulleted blond hair protruding at the back. Funniest, though, is one of Ricky Ponting with a goatee beard. He looks like a 12-year-old who has felt-tipped it on. Merv Hughes he ain't.

Quality of photo is not matched by quality of text. There is nothing new: he loves his kids, Freddie is a top bloke, he is proud to play for Australia, full credit to England in the 2005 Ashes, etc.

Although he does not quite scar every line with a mate's nickname, there are plenty of asinine comments. Worst of all is, after Edgbaston, "I christened [Andrew] Strauss 'the new Daryll' after my biggest rabbit, Daryll Cullinan. In fairness he worked hard and scored two hundreds later on." So, not the new Daryll, then.

It is easy to sneer at a book like this. The pictures are great and, in a book called My Illustrated Career, they are what counts. If you are after informed, analytical copy - which Warne, and his ghost-writer Richard Hobson are more than capable of - wait for the end of his career.

It will almost certainly be accompanied by a momentous, word-heavy autobiography.