If all goes tonight as it has done previously, Australia will complete a comprehensive win over England some time in the early hours in the UK.

As well as confirming the first 5-0 whitewash that England have suffered in the Ashes since 1921, the occasion will mark the last time that we see Shane Keith Warne involved in a competitive international cricket match.

So many words have been written about Warne that I'm not going to go on and on but the thing I love about him is that he has always entertained. I've read columns recently castigating him for over-zealous appealing and sledging of opponents but it's all part of his sense of theatre.

It's easy to forget in this world of vast salaries that one of the core characteristics of sport, as well as the elements of competition, talent and spirit, is that it should be entertainment for spectators. Nobody captures that drama like Warne - whether it's the Ball of the Century that drifted, dipped and spun its way into history, or yesterday's observation that Paul Collingwood should give back his MBE...!

The nub of his appeal for me is that he is the antithesis of the modern professional sportsman. In a land populated by charisma-less clones with fitness coaches, dieticians and personality bypasses, Warne is unfit and overweight, surviving on a diet of pizza and toasted sandwiches. He smokes and drinks and when not involved in cricket, he relaxes by sending flirty or alternatively, obscene text messages to attractive ladies who are not his wife! And despite all that, his well of cricketing genius runs so deep that he is still the leading Test match wicket-taker of all time and arguably the greatest bowler who ever drew breath. What's not to love about that?!?

Sport lovers everywhere should feast their eyes on his last performance tonight for we shall not see his like again and we will weep when he is gone.