Shane Warne dominated cricket on the field and off for almost thirty years – his skill, his fame, his personality, his misadventures. His death in March 2022 rocked Australians, even those who could not tell a leg-break from a leg-pull. But what was it like to watch Warne at his long peak, the man of a thousand international wickets, the incarnation of Aussie audacity and cheek?

Gideon Haigh saw it all, still can’t quite believe it, but wanted to find a way to explain it. In this classic appreciation of Australian cricket’s greatest figure, who doubled as the nation’s best-known man, Haigh relieves the highs, the lows, the fun and the follies. The result is a new way of looking at Warne, at sport and at Australia.