Shane Warne made a career out of confusion. Armed with an array of deliveries that made even the most accomplished squirm, countless batsmen would end up befuddled, walking back to the rooms wondering just what had happened.
And as his career has shifted from on-field exploits to off, he remains as difficult as ever to read. You see, Warne has the capacity to offer rare, nuanced insight into Australian cricket. During an interview with the ABC in October, Warne went into impressive detail about the problems he saw in Australian cricket, namely a wider abandonment of club and Sheffield Shield cricket. This, in turn, has had a long-term detrimental impact of both on-field results and off-field attitudes.
A week later the Ethics Centre Review findings were published, among which Warne’s concerns were inadvertently front and centre. It was impressive insight and showed an acute awareness of the game’s current status in this country.
That very same week, however, the spin king wrote something seemingly incompatible with this insight. In a regular Herald Sun column Warne claimed that Aaron Finch should captain Australia in all formats of the game.
Huh?
He went on to say that D’Arcy Short should open the batting for the upcoming series against India.
Now come on, Warnie. Wait, is he serious?
It was playfully provocative. Warne media 101. It got the clicks, the views and all the hits that News Corp could want from a pundit piece. In a way he’s the perfect employee and media talent. He gets the ‘game’. Which outlet wants a former player to come out and say the selectors are spot on? None. Throw up a few left-field suggestions, a few flighted wide ones to the right-hander, and see who bites.
But is that really the case? Does Warne really put forth deliberately provocative statements simply to keep the media cogs turning? If so, this is puzzling.
As the greatest exponent of what’s commonly known as cricket’s most difficult skill – the art of wrist spin – Warne commands immediate respect. He hardly needs to be inflammatory to command attention; he’ll get it either way.
Some commentators take a decidedly objective, even-handed view of the game and are rewarded for it. Take Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, for example, a pair Warne has done plenty of work with on Sky in the UK. The two prominent pundits shape opinion with their cricketing intellect and nuance. When they speak everyone listens. It’s valued and often frames the debate going forward. Warne does the same thing, but unfortunately it’s only some of the time.
Shane Warne’s spin today is just as good as it was in 2006. (Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
The converse argument is that perhaps Warne wholeheartedly backs everything he says, all the way from the Marcus Stoinis and Short obsession to the perpetual Mitchell Starc and Usman Khawaja criticism. Like the batsmen he made a mockery of throughout his career, this too has me stumped. That someone who speaks so absorbingly about cricket’s tactics and the state of the game can put forth such seemingly reactionary suggestions just doesn’t marry up.
Warne was at it again this week. Writing in his column, he suggested that Khawaja shouldn’t play the first Ashes Test and instead be replaced by Marcus Harris or Cameron Bancroft at No.3. Neither should Mitchell Starc, he argued.
“The players’ performances against the worst Sri Lankan team to tour Australia shouldn’t cloud our judgment,” Warne said. Yet Jhye Richardson made his side, presumably picked on the back of his form in the Sri Lanka series. He also claimed, “If Will Pucovski had’ve been picked in the first Test against Sri Lanka at the Gabba, and he should’ve been picked, he would have made a century”. As easy as you like.
Warnie, as we’re always told, is just Warnie and won’t change.
Whether he’s purposefully inflammatory or genuine in his left-field views, I guess we’ll never know.
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