Shane Warne the role model

Jon Pierik interviews Shane Warne for The Courier-Mail and discovers the legspinner feels he’s an ideal mentor for young players.

"If you take a 'who cares?' attitude towards it, they can actually say what they want," Warne says. "I have been burnt enough times, nailed ... what haven't I been nailed about? I know I've brought a lot of it on myself, but I also think some of the press has been uncalled for and unfair at certain times.

"That's where I could be a good mentor for younger players because there's not one thing I haven't been through – sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, everything, whether it be divorce, banned for a year, the lot."

Elton John is a man who has really done rock ’n’ roll and he’s expected at the Gabba for the first Test. Sir Richard Branson, Robbie Williams, John Major and Prince William are also rumoured to be considering visits, according to The Courier-Mail.

In the same paper Robert Craddock sees something different in this England team.

Australia will do well not to confuse this England outfit with its flaky predecessors who looked beaten from the time they landed on these fatal shores. Worldbeaters these England players are not, but there is something different and more substantial about this team than the ramshackle outfits led by Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and Graham Gooch. They are close knit and seem to care for each other, which was never evident in many previous English tour parties.