Do we like Shane Warne?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A visible LGBTQ+ ally who raised serious money for bushfire victims, held back by a doping ban, a contested Adam Goodes take and a patchy record on how he treated people.
Shane Warne was the leg-spinner who made Australia fall in love with a cricket delivery, and he was still a headline magnet long after he stopped bowling. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia after his death in 2022, for service to cricket, as a role model and commentator, and for his charitable work.
The big stain on his playing days came in 2003, when the Australian Cricket Board's anti-doping committee gave him a 12-month ban after he tested positive for a diuretic. Warne said he took a fluid-reducing tablet to slim down, did not know it was a diuretic, and called himself a victim of anti-doping hysteria. The committee found no exceptional circumstances, and that is the part that stuck.
He could also be petty with his own teammates. In his autobiography he called Steve Waugh the most selfish player he ever played with, then admitted he was still looking for a bit of revenge before one Test and that his attitude was childish. At least he owned it. Separately, in 2002 the Herald Sun apologised and withdrew a front-page claim that he had admitted taking money for a fixed match, and Warne dropped his defamation case.
On the harm check, the record is better than you might expect from a bloke with his reputation. Sydney's Mardi Gras called him a proud ally, noting he backed marriage equality in 2017, and activists said he backed the LGBTQ+ community when no cameras were around. We found no campaigning against any group. The black mark is 2015, when he said the booing of Adam Goodes was not about race but about how Goodes played, a take that critics, including the Race Discrimination Commissioner, rejected.
The ugliest allegation was in 2017, when a woman posted photos online and alleged that Warne hit her in a London nightclub. Police questioned him and released him without charge, and he called the claim false and said the matter was closed. Nothing was proven, and it should be read that way.
The good stuff is real. In January 2020 he auctioned his baggy green cap, and Commonwealth Bank paid over a million dollars, all of it going to the Red Cross bushfire appeal. Mourners and colleagues also described years of quiet visits to people doing it tough, which is why the tributes after his death were so warm.