There are very few cricketers who can claim to be a box office, gold standard star in any era in which they would have played. Shane Warne was one of them.
He was neither ahead of time nor born too late to be celebrated and recognized. In this sense, Warne made his generation his own.
Arrived on the scene as a bleached blonde beach bum from Melbourne who adores her pineapple pizza a little too much and departed at the age of 52, when she announced on social media that she wanted to get in shape again. Starting a health campaign for Warne, Warne was larger than life.
This was mainly because he was alongside Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble, the deadliest spin bowlers of his time. In this too, Warne was a different man.
Where Murali was eccentric, and Kumble unconventional, Warne was a textbook leg-spinner. The gentle, almost sluggish approach to the crease thwarted his effort, either through muscular shoulders or whipped wrists.
Only Murali did better in his Tests of 708 wickets, and when you add to this 293 scalps in One Day Internationals, you reach the number of 1001 international wickets, which is unlikely to be bettered by any Australian . The key number is that he didn’t fall prey to the weak: Warne has 17 wickets against the weakest teams of his time, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, while Murali, who has 800 Test wickets in total, took 176 against similar opponents. .
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But Warne is not about numbers. All the cricketers claim that they have no knowledge of statistics but every bowler can easily memorize most of their scalps.
In 1993, Warne announced himself with that most famous delivery, one that floated, dipped and squared off, rolling the stumps backwards, to open Mike Gatting like a tin of the bowler’s favorite baked beans. It is called the ball of the century, but if you ask Warne, he will tell you that he regularly bowls the cut.
It was part of Warne’s magic. He saw the world, and himself, as separate from mere mortals. In every ball, Warne realized what was possible, dreamed of what was ideal and delivered what was unbelievable.
Warne didn’t want to be in the limelight, but he never stayed away from the limelight. Even as Australia struggled at times in their modern golden age, Warne was right up the list of top wicket-takers. This was a man who did not understand the meaning of failure, because he rarely experienced it.
When he debuted, there was some indication that he would be one of the modern greats. Against India in Sydney in 1992, he returned 1 for 150, and even the only wicket he took was that of a batsman who had scored 206 runs, Ravi Shastri.
But, it didn’t take him long to establish himself as the last missing piece in Australia’s quest for world domination. He had batting, fielding, fast bowling, supply line, coaching skills in domestic cricket but he needed a quality spinner to take his success at home and replicate it across the world. Warne completes Australia.
It should come as no surprise that the tributes have gotten faster and faster since Warne’s untimely heart attack in Thailand.
Few players of the modern era have enjoyed the respect of opponents and the adoration of fans – even neutrals – as Warne. Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar, two of the greatest batsmen of the game, equaled Warne. Their fighting was fierce, and while the men of Mumbai or Trinidad would have outnumbered Warne, they knew that they would have to use every ounce of their resources to do so.
When Wisden, the traditional final word in cricket, in its millennium edition polled 100 experts from around the world to pick their five cricketers of the century, Warne was the only person still playing to make the cut. Don Bradman was the only person to receive every vote, and the great Gary Sobers came second with 90 votes. England batsman Jack Hobbs came in third with 30 votes, and then there was Warne with 27, who also put Viv Richards in the shadow.
Such was the aura of Warne in the world of cricket, his fire burning without any boundaries of time or space. He was one for the ages, and in his passing, cricket has not only lost the most-watched spinner of all time, but also a man who made and found life bigger, and in equal measure. Gave pleasure
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