GIVEN that he is widely acknowledged as the greatest slow bowler in cricketing history, it should be no surprise that Shane Warne tends to live his life in a spin. And not just any old spin at that.

Tossed and turned by a maelstrom of booze, birds and betting, Warne's existence is as difficult to read as his fabled flipper. The only person he wreaks more havoc on than an opposition batsman is himself.

Yet at the heart of this anarchic, intemperate personality lies a cricketer who can rightly claim to be the greatest of all time.

Wisden acknowledged as much when they named him one of their five greatest cricketers in 2000 and England's players can attest to his enduring ability after falling at his feet for what seems like the umpteenth time on Thursday.

It is why the player dubbed "Hollywood" by his Australian team-mates continues to delight and disgust in equal measure. Build the ultimate cricketer and it would come out looking something like Warne. Assemble a stereotypical rogue and you would not be far away either.

"Shane is a genius," claimed Kevin Pietersen, Warne's Hampshire team-mate and Ashes combatant. "He's the best cricketer that ever lived.

"People think he's this naughty boy. He's got this image of being an absolute fool who nobody likes, but he's one of the most generous, unselfish, well-mannered people you could meet."

"Shane is perverted," claimed Donna Wright, a nurse who brushed off Warne's advances in a Leicester nightclub in 2000, only to find herself bombarded by a series of lewd late-night text messages.

"I could not believe this man who is admired worldwide for his cricket could be so revolting."

Two sides of the same coin that may not be as unconnected as some would believe.

On the pitch, it is difficult to over-estimate Warne's genius. Born in Black Rock, an affluent suburb of Melbourne in September 1969, he made his Victoria debut in the Sheffield Shield at the age of 22 and graduated to the Australian national side just four games later.

His first Test was unremarkable - figures of one for 228 might well have seen him dropped from the England side of the same time - but, later that year, he took three for nought to spin his side to victory against India.

A legend was born, and it became etched in cricketing folklore when he delivered his first Test ball in England in 1993.

A bemused Mike Gatting was like a rabbit trapped in the headlights as the ball of the century pitched outside his leg stump before fizzing and spinning fully 18 inches to remove the off-side bail.

"In the space on one delivery so much had changed," said Warne, when asked to reflect on the wicket prior to the start of this Ashes series. "My confidence was sky-high. I was pumped up and rock and rolling."

Graham Gooch might have jokingly blamed Gatting for the dismissal - "If it had been a cheese roll it would never have got past him" - but an incredulous English public could only admire the skill and impudence of the 24-year-old.

They were to be traits that would propel him to the very pinnacle of world cricket. Warne became the most prolific spinner in Test history in 1998, Australia's leading wicket taker in 2000, and the leading Test wicket-taker of all time shortly after.

Fittingly, 12 years after bamboozling Gatting at Old Trafford, Warne returned to the ground last month to claim his 600th Test wicket. Nobody else has got anywhere near the mark and, with retirement still some way off, there are already those predicting that 700 might not represent an impenetrable barrier.

Yet, while Warne remains Australia's most experienced and recognisable figure, he has been shunned by his own establishment.

Passed over in favour of Ricky Ponting when the Australian authorities were looking for a successor to Steve Waugh, Warne has been denied the captaincy that would have completed his career.

"I had my time and twice captained Australia in Tests and captained them a fair-bit in one-day cricket," he countered. "I don't have any regrets in my life. I would have maybe done a few things differently but you can't have regrets in your life."

No regrets perhaps, but plenty of reproach. In an era of massive celebrity exposure and intense media scrutiny, Warne has found it impossible to keep his newspaper appearances to the back page.

Craving the attention and limelight he commands in the middle, the peroxide blonde has stumbled from one crisis to the next. Like an over-indulged child who has never grown up, the 36-year-old has spurned the temperance that has been urged of him to embrace a lifestyle with more than a dash of the hedonistic.

In 1994, he was fined £2,000 for abusing South African batsman Andrew Hudson. A year later he was offered - and refused - a $200,000 bribe from Pakistan batsman Salim Malik to bowl poorly in a Test match but, in 1998, it emerged that Warne had accepted £3,000 from a bookmaker to provide information about pitch conditions in Sri Lanka.

In 1999 he blew a lucrative advertising deal with Nicorette by smoking in public and, the following year, found himself embroiled in the long-running text pest scandal.

Worse was to come. In 2003, Warne was sent home from the World Cup in disgrace and banned for a year after testing positive for a diuretic, a substance that can be used to mask steroids.

The spinner claimed his mother had given him the drug to hide his double chin but, as with other sportsmen who have pleaded their innocence following a failed test, the rumours refused to go away.

As did the sex scandals. This June, 25-year-old Laura Sayers claimed Warne stripped naked in front of her and begged her to have sex in Pietersen's flat. Six days later, his wife, Simone, left him.

Warne was distraught but, turning down the chance of a return to Australia, pledged to give his all in an attempt to prevent England stealing the Ashes.

Even his captain, Ponting, questioned his mental state at the start of the series - Warne's response was to post match figures of six for 83 as England were put to the sword in the first Test.

This week's six-wicket haul could yet prove the most crucial intervention of his career. If the tourists win at The Oval and square the series, Warne's heroics will have turned the tie.

Once again, he will be revered as the hero of Australian cricket. If only achieving personal salvation came to him quite as easily.