Warne responds to harassment claims

Australian leg spinner Shane Warne has admitted to making lewd telephone calls to a British nurse. But he has also rejected assertions that such calls were necessarily unsolicited.

Speaking on Australia's Channel Nine network tonight, Warne confirmed that he had met Donna Smith, 22, in a Leicester nightclub in mid-May and that he had subsequently made "dirty talk" with her during a series of telephone conversations.

At the end of several days of almost complete silence, the star bowler was attempting for the first time to put his own spin on allegations that he had subjected Smith to persistent sexual harassment in a number of calls made from his mobile telephone. After intimating that he was uncomfortable about responding to the accusations so publicly - but that he found it necessary to do so given the extent to which the scandal had exploded in the media during recent days - Warne rejected the claims and stated that the pair's involvement had been far from a one-way process.

Disputing the version of events so far presented to be almost the complete opposite of the real truth, the Australian outlined that it was Smith who had approached him at the nightclub. He inferred that she had later willingly participated in several steamy conversations with him. Warne also stated that he had not passed the key to his hotel room to Smith at any time and had no idea as to how it had ended in her possession.

Warne conceded that, as the latest in a string of off-field controversies involving him, the incident had damaged his credibility and lessened "the percentages" that he might ever graduate to the position of Australian captain in the future. He also stated that he and wife Simone had discussed the claims (and that every marriage goes through its "ups and downs") and, as far as they were concerned, it was behind them.

Warne was making his comments from Southampton, his base during the season of county cricket commitments that he is currently completing with English side Hampshire.