Warne's texting habits bowl over Aussies

If we are to believe the dressing room and boardroom telegraphs, Shane Warne is responsible these days for offering South Africa's captain Graeme Smith a lot more than a few sage comments.

He has in part, been credited with helping South Africa beat Australia 2-1 in the Test series with some streetwise advice. There is also the matter of how his views on coaches and captaincy have affected such as England captain Kevin Pietersen.

As the three men have egos as big as the Indian Ocean, it is understandable there will be a few clashes of personalities.

This is where Warne's association at county and Indian Premier League franchise levels with two big-named players has added spice to the game's current affairs sideshow. When he and Pietersen were connected with Hampshire, there was a lot of discussion: of Warne's view on coaching, coaches and the tactics to employ to win games against certain teams.

Yet Warne is your typical showman when it comes to directing other players. His views are hard to ignore as the former leg-spin genius has been playing an important role outside the confines of the dressing room of his former Australian Test and ODI team-mates.

His tie-in with Smith and their strange nexus is an example of where the dressing room becomes a valued source of information and creating styles and a think tank culture.

It didn't need either Graham Gooch to remind anyone of Warne's views on coaches. Warne was always thumbing his nose at John Buchanan's methods and at times attempted to usurp the dressing room authority of Ricky Ponting when Steve Waugh retired.

Antipathy is nothing new, whether in the dressing room or on the field. Smith's first contact with Warne was a confrontational one at Newlands, Cape Town when making his Test debut during the 2001-02 fractious summer for the Proteas.

Led by Shaun Pollock, the South Africans were humiliated 3-0 Down Under in a series where politics intervened and Jacques Rudolph was embarrassingly jack-knifed out of the side and his friend and roommate Justin Ontong replaced him in an affirmative action move.

Added to this scandal, Pollock was injured and meant Mark Boucher appointed as a caretaker captain in the return series. In a horrendous display at the Wanderers, the batting-order was cannibalised to suit the politicians: the result resembled technique from a mechanical junkyard cobbled together and where a disillusioned public at a first world venue saw a third world performance.

Days later Smith made his Test debut at Newlands in the second Test and the first words greeting him asked where his bucket and spade were, and did he know how to handle a bat, as it is not a broomstick. This is of course far more polite than the invective Warne, Glenn McGrath and others were using at the time.

Smith's reaction in the media when he spelled out his thoughts on such events didn't go down too well. While the future South African captain was told how 'Schoolboys don't squeal out of class' , it meant that he and Warne were far from being big pals.

This changed though when the Rajasthan Royals bought Smith. At first Warne wasn't too happy with Smith nosing around in the side getting ideas. But putting aside their egos the worked towards making the Royals a IPL powerhouse and from that point, a lot of tactics and ideas were being discussed between the two.

Naturally, Warne tried to play down his IPL link with Smith when the Proteas captain suggested that Warne had helped him get under the Aussie psyche, which irritated Ricky Ponting as much as it nibbled at the Aussie confidence.

It is known how, among the older Australian players, Warne had a significant psychological hold on many of them. This has lessened, because he is no longer playing but has become good mates with Smith.

Interestingly, Warne sent a series of text messages to Smith during the Perth Test, which when discovered created a lot of chatter in the Aussie dressing room and other circles. In one of the early observations, Warne told Smith that he had not seen an Australian team so quiet in the field. It has been suggested that the particular SMS boosted the South Africans’ confidence to the extent they were more confrontational.

This was noticeable on the last day when South Africa hunted down the incredible fourth innings total of 414 to win the game.

Smith has also suggested how Warne tipped him off about some of the myths in the Australian camp. Some of the strategy surrounded what type of bowling policy was required to tackle the Australian batting order.

“Everyone knew that we weren't the best of mates before the IPL but not everyone knew that we finished the tournament as genuinely good mates,” Smith has written of his relationship with Warne. “He has an incredible cricket brain which I was able to pick over the course of five or six weeks. This series seemed a long way in the future when I was asking him about Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting and he told me how he would try to get them out if he was captain.”

Warne has dismissed Smith's comments. “I just nodded, smiled and held my cards close to my chest. But, I hear Smithy has now said their plans were mine. I had a huge chuckle to myself and thought, the mind games have started.”

It is hard to say just how much of this is genuine. So often, it is part of the media hype surrounding the series to sell papers and draw in readers as well as add comments and create discussion.

British newspapers, with an eye to the Ashes Tests this year, had a team of writers in Australia covering the Tests and showed remarkable interest in off-field comment as well as on-field tactics and player-performances.

Ironically, Smith, in his post Melbourne comments, was quick to suggest how planning for this Test series had been laid three years ago after the 2005-06 2-0 defeat. As these differ a lot from column comments, it makes you wonder how much you read is a thumb-suck and how much is genuine.