“HOWZAT?” Appeals Shane Warne To The Umpires Of Love Who Make Up The Daily Telegraph’s Readership

The Warne text affair drama of this morning has just gotten a little more interesting, with Shane issuing a press release to the Daily Telegraph stating that ex wife Simone Callahan has been telling porkies to New Idea about their relationship break up in order to gain sympathy and, perhaps more importantly, make a pile of dosh for her paid “exclusive” to the magazine.

Says Shane – miraculously without resorting to SMS-speak – in his statement…

Unfortunately, I find it now necessary to release a statement due to Simone’s latest paid factually incorrect interview with New Idea.

Here are the facts.

- We have been divorced for over a year.

- Simone and I finally separated nearly two months ago on August 5th 2007 when we left Spain and before Simone’s planned departure with the children back to Australia. Simone did not want to release a statement because she thought it was nobody’s business but ours, and I agreed.

- We also agreed to sit the children down on my return on September 25th and let them know that we had separated, we agreed they should know before anyone else.

- We gave our relationship a go in the UK but it just wasn’t working, so we agreed amicably to go our own way.

- The only reason we separated was that we both knew it was finally over. There was no affair, nor anyone else.

- We have our own houses in Melbourne, which has been the case since we separated.

- I am looking forward to a quiet Australian summer, a little sad not to be playing cricket for the first time in 20 years but I’ll be spending plenty of time with my children and friends.

Your move, Simone.