Sydney, Oct.19 : Recording-breaking leg spinner Shane Warne dearly wanted to captain the Australian cricket team, but according to former Cricket Australia director Queensland lawyer Damien Mullins, Warne’s ambition was scuttled for seven “deadly sins”.

Mullins is quoted by news.com.au as saying that there was always a feeling in Cricket Australia officialdom that Warne would always let you down sooner or later.

Cricket Australia directors are meeting today to decide, among other things, if there is a suitable coaching or promotional job they can offer Warne with a view to using his expertise in spin bowling to unearth future exponents of the art.

The ambivalence with which the men who run the game view Warne is detailed in the first officially sanctioned history of Cricket Australia, the governing body, since 1905.

Inside Story, Unlocking Australian Cricket's Archives, by Gideon Haigh and David Frith, is a 280,000-word account of how all the big issues unfolded behind closed doors for more than a century. It goes on sale on Monday.

There had always been top-level misgivings about Warne's behaviour, writes Haigh, who has had unprecedented access to minutes and other official documents.

Those misgivings came to a head in August 2000, when Adam Gilchrist replaced Warne as vice-captain to Steve Waugh after the leg-spinner was involved in a text-messaging scandal with an English nurse.

The minutes of the then board meeting listed seven reasons for stripping Warne of the vice-captaincy:

• (He needs to be) taught a lesson. 

. Leadership brings other responsibilities.

• Given opportunities and shown that he can't.

• (It is) not this one issue (a phone texting scandal). .

• History of incidents.

• Catalogue of reckless conduct.

• Responsibility to maintain public confidence.

The minutes add that the door was not closed.

"The last line suggested Warne had not disqualified himself altogether," Haigh writes.

"However he never did get the captaincy on a permanent basis."

Malcolm Speed, CA's chief executive at the time, told Warne of the board's bafflement at the "repeated allegations of inappropriate behaviour".

The book says that by the time the vice-captaincy was stripped from him Warne had serious detractors at board level, including Queensland lawyer Damien Mullins, who has since left the organisation.

Mullins said: "You can have different views as to his personal behaviour or about its dimensions or its implications. But my view about his qualifications for assuming high office has been consistent all the way through.

"To put it in simple terms: I knew if he was put in a position of authority, sooner or later he would always let you down."

Warne's incapacity for accepting responsibility became proverbial, the book says.

Speed let him off after stump microphones recorded him swearing at Zimbabwe's Stuart Carlisle in Sydney in 2001, but reported: "As usual Shane has difficulty accepting that it is his fault – the stump microphones should not have been turned on."

Later that year, on the recommendation of chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns, Warne briefly resumed the vice-captaincy in Gilchrist's absence.

But Mullins was implacably opposed and requested his stance be recorded in the minutes.

Chairman Denis Rogers and WA delegate Bob Paulsen also disagreed with the appointment.

Another former chairman, Victorian Bob Merriman, is described as a Warne apologist "who felt a mixture of delight and dismay about his fellow Victorian".

Merriman said: "I've always felt there should be a limit on any sentence.

That's why I supported him. I've had a lot of issues with Shane, but I've always had a lot of good times with him. I enjoy talking to him; he's just beaut." (ANI)