Sydney, Feb 16: High-profile Australian cricketer Shane Warne has yet to say why he took a diuretic pill but he has revealed that it was a challenge from teammate Brett Lee that sparked his physical transformation. Warne will this week learn if his cricket career is over when he goes before an Australian Cricket Board anti-doping committee after testing positive to diuretics, a substance banned because of its ability to conceal performance- enhancing drugs.
Vanity has been widely touted as a reason why Warne may have taken a pill supplied by his mother which he says caused the positive test and forced him home from the World Cup in southern Africa.
Warne has revealed in an interview with Inside Sport magazine conducted before his test result became public that it was encouragement from Lee that started his fitness kick.
Australian coach John Buchanan was thought to have initiated it when he publicly criticised Warne's fitness after the second test loss to India in Calcutta in 2001.
"It's to do with physical fitness - it's no secret that Warney's probably not one of the fittest characters running around in world cricket," Buchanan said at the time.
But Warne told Inside Sport it was Lee's insistence in the Sydney cricket ground dressing rooms last summer that Warne join him for extra fitness sessions that sparked his weight loss. Bureau Report