Where is the 'spin' when it is needed most?

Politicians faced with crises crawling out of the woodwork in the manner that has afflicted Shane Warne this week would have applied some spin to managing the fall-out, but the greatest spinner of them all can't extract any advantage from the flat track of controversy.

While all the allegations against him are still in the unproven category, there's a fair bit of combustion building up amid the smoke of suggestion. Troubled not only by allegations of phone-text harassment of a 45-year-old South African divorcee, Warne is a key participant in an alleged blackmail case against Cricket Australia that involves his tongue-kissing a teenager, whose uncle allegedly tried to get CA to match a magazine offer of $5000 for the story. Now, a stripper has alleged that she had been having an affair with him until a month ago.

Compounding this is the revelation from a former employee at Cricket Australia, or the Australia Cricket Board as it was then known, which suggested that Warne had been the subject of almost daily complaints for several years.

To cap it all, the Australian Government has finally entered the saga, over the arbitration ruling that allowed Warne to play charity cricket, and to practice with the Australian team.

The Minister of Arts and Sport, Senator Rod Kemp, who stayed out of the row that developed over a week ago when the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) was highly critical of the ruling that allowed Warne to play charity matches, told Australia's parliament yesterday that the Australian Sports Commission would be speaking with Cricket Australia about the matter. He wanted to see Warne prevented from training for club, state or country.

"It is the advice that I have received that playing in charity teams and taking part in practice matches with the national team is contrary to the anti-doping code," he said. "I believe that those (anti-doping) codes should be enforced and I believe they will be enforced."

Meanwhile, James Sutherland, CA's chief executive, confirmed the statements made by Peter Young, the general manager, to Wisden CricInfo last week, that a review of the drug policy will be undertaken before the start of the season.