Warne fled country to save marriage

Shane Warne has admitted that he had to leave his country and flee to Spain to save his marriage, after having an affair with a Melbourne stripper in 2003. Warne, who disclosed this during the 60 Minutes programme on Australia's Channel 9, said that he was embarrassed by the affair and couldn't face his wife.

"It's not easy to talk about," he was quoted as saying by AAP. "It was quite a tough time in my life. It was something that I thought was personal between my wife and I. I did the wrong thing and that's something I have to live with, and it's not easy to live with because I'm embarrassed about what I did."

Unable to cope with the intense media scrutiny after news of the affair broke, the Warnes fled the country. "We were angry about the 50 [media] people outside our house. We couldn't get out of the driveway. It was the wrong environment to try and talk, and so we couldn't really talk; we had to get out of the country. We ended up going to Spain."

Warne, a father with three children, said that the family managed to overcome the crisis and his wife, Simone, had conducted herself with dignity during the saga.

"I think she has handled herself very well in a lot of tough situations, and it's an unfortunate part of our live and now, hopefully, it's gone."

This isn't the first time that Warne has been involved in a sex scandal. He also stole the spotlight when revelations of phone sex with a British nurse were made in 2000. This resulted in Warne's losing the vice-captaincy of the Australian side. And in 2003, Warne was also accused of making raunchy phone calls to a 45-year-old South African woman Helen Cohen Alon. However, the woman was later sentenced to jail for attempting to extort money from Warne. He has also served a 12-month ban from cricket for taking a banned substance contained in a diet pill during the 2003 World Cup.