Wednesday, August 29, 2001 On the second floor of Border's bookshop at Oxford Circus, central London, a middle-aged man in brown pretended to read the 15th edition of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He scratched his head and turned the pages, but the intricacies of anatomy were passing him by. What he really had his eye on was the bleached blond with the big caramel arms, sitting ten yards away.

He shouldn't have tried to ignore the allure. This was, after all, a man the publicists guaranteed would "bowl you over". And England had proved at the weekend that resistance against Shane Warne really is useless.

At midday the queue of people hoping for a glimpse of golden wrist stretched past the family Scrabble dictionaries; by half-past, those at the back were having to finger the Penguin Classics. And in each sticky paw was a copy of Shane Warne My Autobiography.

At 12.35 he emerged. He posed for the photographers, smiled, and settled into his chair like a man who had just enjoyed an over-buttered bacon butty. The heat of The Oval might have been replaced by air-conditioning, and the noise of the crowd by the hum of the escalator, but still he performed, toying with the blue plastic biro nearly as adeptly as he had with the ball.

And he was nice to everyone, not just the pretty ladies. The kids, the office worker, the postman in his uniform - each got 20 seconds starting with a "G'day" and ending with a "no worries". Warne has always known how to play to the crowd.

Not as many people turned up as had for David Beckham. And probably not as many as are going to turn up for Vinnie Jones on Thursday. But of all current cricketers, Warne is one of the very few who come close to being sprinkled with football's glitter. And for £18.99, you got a wink from a Cricketer of the Century. Mate, it was a bargain.

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden.com. Shane Warne's book, and many other leading titles, can be ordered from our bookshop partners SportsBooksDirect.

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