Let Warne play ... on the field, that is

Which wild-eyed, world-famous, charismatic Australian bowling larrikin said this? "I don't try to be Joe Blow the superstud - it just happens." Or this? "I've taken out some real dolls, like beach beauties and models. They're the best." Which bowler bragged shamelessly about sheilas of "all shapes and sizes with just one thing in common - they wanted my body"?

Guilty on all counts was Jeff Thomson who, according to urban legend, struck fear into even more English girls' knickers than he did batsmen's hearts on the Ashes tour of 1975. Thomson's punishment was a snigger here, a chuckle there and to be branded a rebel, a lad. Twenty-eight years on and Shane Warne, Thommo's spiritual successor, faces exile for his excesses.

Switch on the radio and you would think Warne was the most evil, hated person in Australia, worse than the politicians who lie or the churchmen who prey. Open a newspaper and you risk concussion by columnists united in their outrage. Warne, they huff and puff, must either bow out in shame or be booted out in disgrace.

Now Warne is many things. He is a man out of his time, out of his depth and, so far as his wife Simone is concerned, out in the doghouse. Conceivably, under the present strain, he is out of his mind; certainly he has been out of order. None of which means he should be out of the team.

Two crucial differences separate Thomson and Warne. The first is to do with them: Thomson was single at the time, Warne is married. The second is about us.

As society has become more liberal Australia's social commentators and moral myth-makers have grown more pompous, more puritanical, and never more so than when the integrity of a cricketer - strewth, a cricketer of all people - is at stake. What was OK for Thommo would probably be OK for Rupert Murdoch or John Howard or Russell Crowe. But never, under any circumstances, for Shane Warne.

Our cricketers are expected to be whiter than their white flannels, cleaner in demeanour than any other public figures or prominent sportspeople. In the week before all hell broke loose in Warne's World a former rugby league star, Darrell Trindall, pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman in a Sydney bar. It stirred barely a murmur. That, apparently, is just what former rugby league stars do.

Warne, by contrast, has committed no actual crime. The jury is still out on the 16-year-old girl he allegedly tongue-kissed. The stripper from Melbourne and "hairy-backed sheila" from Johannesburg took their complaints to the media, not the police. Warne's great sin, say the pompous and puritanical, is to set a bad example to children.

Warne is guilty of that, no question, but many others have done much worse. When Greg Chappell ordered his brother to bowl underarm he introduced to youngsters the concept of winning at any cost. When Rodney Hogg kicked down his stumps, and when Dennis Lillee booted Javed Miandad, they legitimised violence as a form of protest. Ian Chappell showed children a thing or two about decorum by swearing at umpires and dropping his strides during Sheffield Shield games; Allan Border taught them petulance when he arrived late on the field one morning because his good pal, Geoff Marsh, had been left out. When Darren Lehmann yelled out an epithet preceded by "black" against Sri Lanka last summer he gave comfort to racists everywhere.

Lillee, Hogg and Greg Chappell have all made good livings as coaches. Ian Chappell is a distinguished commentator. Border is a national treasure. And Lehmann is still in the team. Warne deserves the same chance.

Among his multiple misdemeanours, firing off salacious text messages ranks somewhere in the middle: more damaging than being sprung smoking at an inopportune moment, but some distance behind consorting with John the Bookmaker and repeatedly telling the South African opener Andrew Hudson exactly where to go. It is true that in this celebrity age a player's off-field behaviour is relevant like never before. It is equally true that his on-field conduct remains far more likely to lose him friends and influence people.

Consider the furore that engulfed Glenn McGrath when he tongue-lashed and finger-bashed Ramnaresh Sarwan three months ago. Back then, the letters pages drowned in outrage. Now they're awash with jokes. McGrath's actions made tomorrow's Test cricketers more likely to crack under pressure. Warne has made more them more likely to crack gags.

Only among journalists - mostly non-cricket ones, interestingly - is the mood more hostile than humorous. They have set up camp outside Warne's home. They have sneaked sleazy photos of him puffing on a fag in his own backyard. Their ignorance has been exposed by their indignation - as if no cricketer ever shagged himself silly on tour back in the good old days - and compounded by their descriptions of Warne as a fading force, barely worth his spot anyway, what with Stuart MacGill taking wickets on autopilot.

MacGill is an excellent bowler with a big legbreak. Warne is a once-every-200-years freak. He rarely gets his wrong'un right and seldom lands his flipper. But instead of one standard legbreak he now has at least three: one that spins a bit, one that spins a lot, and another that keeps going and going and going. He mixes them up at will.

There's his stockpile of straight balls: the slider, zooter and toppie, one that drifts in, one that slopes out and another that doesn't budge at all. Then there's his hypnotic presence. He bluffs and blusters, grins and grimaces, flights and foxes. He doesn't so much take wickets as cajole them. And in his last dozen Tests he has cajoled 78 of them at 20.56, while averaging a Benaudesque 24 with the bat. Once he was in the same legspinning ballpark as Grimmett and O'Reilly. Now he is in a galaxy of his own.

Come February, after 12 months' resting an old shoulder and testing some new tricks, he might even be better still. In the meantime he should follow his mum's advice - something else he's good at - and keep his brain switched on and mobile turned off. And stop texting strange ladies.

"The man is a giant sleazy hamster with terrible hair," a female colleague e-mailed yesterday. Well, yes. Good reason, then, to stop playing the field - but to carry on playing on the field.