Shane Keith Warne AO (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, whose career ran from 1991 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australia. He is widely acknowledged to have been one of the sport's greatest-ever bowlers; he made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets, and set the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket, a record he held until 2007.

Warne was a useful, lower-order batsman who scored more than 3,000 Test runs, with a highest score of 99. He retired from international cricket at the end of Australia's 2006–07 Ashes series victory over England.

In the first four seasons of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Warne was a player-coach for Rajasthan Royals and also captained the team.

During his career, Warne was involved in off-field scandals; his censures included a ban from cricket for testing positive for a prohibited substance, and charges of sexual indiscretions and bringing the game, and himself, into disrepute.

Warne was born with complete heterochromia, giving him a blue right eye and a green left eye.

From 1999 to 2005, Warne was married to Simone Callahan, with whom he had 3 children. In April 2007, Warne and Callahan were reported to be reuniting two years after their divorce. Five months later, however, Callahan again left Warne after he inadvertently sent her a text message he had intended for another woman.

Following his split from Callahan, Warne dated English actor Elizabeth Hurley. Although their relationship at first seemed short-lived following the disclosure that Warne was sending sexual messages to a married Melbourne businesswoman, the couple created a media frenzy when Hurley moved into Warne's mansion in Brighton, Victoria. In late 2011, Hurley and Warne announced they were engaged, but they had cancelled the engagement by December 2013. Warne later said, "I was more in love with Elizabeth than I'd realised I could be. I miss the love we had. My years with Elizabeth were the happiest of my life."

Warne revolutionised cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, which at the time was regarded as a dying art.

After retirement, he regularly worked as a cricket commentator and for charitable organisations, and endorsed commercial products. In recognition of his skill, a statue of Warne bowling was placed outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), where he was also honoured with a state memorial service, as well as having a grandstand named in his honour.

Warne was posthumously appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his service to cricket.

Shane is not only one of the greatest living cricket legends: he is as close as the game has had since Botham to a maverick genius on the field and a true rebel spirit off it, who always gives audiences what they want.

Despite being the talismanic thorn in England’s side for nearly two decades of regular Ashes defeats, he was also much loved in the UK, where he played cricket for Hampshire. He’s also a much-admired figure in India and South Africa. 

Alongside his mesmerising genius as a bowler, Shane has often been a controversial figure, and in this book he talks with brutal honesty about some of the most challenging times in his life as a player.

Honest, thoughtful, fearless and loved by millions, Shane is always his own man, and this book is a testament to his brilliant career.