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Change Your Life! |
Sex scandal threatens Warne’s vice captaincy |
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News |
June 20, 2000
MELBOURNE (AP) - Shane Warne could have jeopardized his position as Australian vice-captain after being embroiled in a British tabloid sex scandal.
Australian Cricket Board chief executive Malcolm Speed left Melbourne on Monday bound for England, where he plans to meet with Warne before attending a series of International Cricket Council meetings.
Speed has already spoken with Warne by telephone and declined to impose disciplinary sanctions over the incident. But he hinted Monday that Warne's leadership would be called to question when his contract was reviewed in August.
"The players are under some unique pressures, but they are adults and we can't be with them 24 hours a day," Speed told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio. "There are standards that are set and we expect them to meet those standards."
Warne admitted to "talking dirty" to a British nurse after the contents of tapes from the 22-year-old Donna Wright's telephone answering machine were exposed in London's Daily Mirror newspaper.
Wright alleged the leg-spin bowler had harassed her with a series of "explicit" phone calls. The cricketer denied harassing Wright, adding that she led him on after they met in a Leicester nightclub.
Warne is married with two children. He is playing for Hampshire in the English domestic county competition during the Australian off-season.
Warne, whose career has been plagued by controversies, has already said he hopes the latest scandal doesn't interfere with his ambition to captain Australia.
He ran into trouble on a tour of New Zealand earlier this year when he was accused of swearing at a teen-age boy who photographed him smoking during a rain delay during a match at Wellington.
Warne admitted in 1994 that he accepted money from a bookmaker to give information on weather and pitch conditions. He was fined U.S. dlrs 6,000 for the incident, along with teammate Mark Waugh.
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