Former Australia batsman Doug Walters recounts ordeal with smoking habit

Australian cricket icon and larrikin Doug Walters has reportedly said that after being convinced to take a laser treatment by friend and golf legend, Jack Newton, he has not felt like smoking a cigarette even once in five years.

Walters, who puffed on more than 50 cigarettes a day for most of his life, revealed that after Newton underwent a laser treatment and he had stopped smoking, he wanted to "have a look at the treatment he had."

When he finally took the treatment and was about to be discharged, he felt like he would go downstairs and smoke a cigarette. However, when he actually got downstairs, 'he didn't feel like puffing one'. The 69-year-old added, "I have waited over five and a half years and I still haven't felt like one.''

Walters, who played 74 Tests and scored 5357 runs at 48 between 1965 and 1981, said that quitting smoking was one of his "greatest achievements."