Bring Back Warne!

A group of Queensland cricket fans have launched a campaign to lure Shane Warne out of retirement in a bid to save Australia from their first home Ashes series defeat in nearly a quarter of a century.

With the hopes of the Australian public crushed by the team's innings defeat at Adelaide, a Brisbane businessman Ross Heywood has set up a website, bringbackwarne.com, to call for donations to an Ashes "Rescue Fund".

So far the site has raised nearly Aus$4000 since going live on Tuesday morning, although given the six-figure sums that Warne racks in through his range of commentary, poker and endorsement enterprises, they'll need a bit more than that ...

"We'll offer the Rescue Fund to the King of Spin, pleading with him to once again don the baggy green and win us back the Ashes,'' Heywood told the Courier Mail, adding that all contributions would be refunded if the campaign proved unsuccessful.

Warne himself is currently on a flight to London, but England's coach Andy Flower gave a wry response to the notion. "I would assume that is just someone messing around," he said. "Shane Warne has retired from international cricket."