Opinion
The untimely death of Shane Warne at 52 has deprived the cricketing world of one of the true greats, a man who revived the art of spin bowling after nearly two decades of dominance by pace.
Warne died in Thailand on Friday at the age of 52, felled by a heart attack.
The leg-spinner arrived on the international scene in 1992, a blonde-haired kid from Melbourne, but did not catch the attention of the game’s pundits right away. It took a while, but under the captaincy of Allan Border he grew in stature and slowly became the go-to bowler when Australia needed a wicket.
After the 1970s, when the Indian quad of Erapalli Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Bishen Singh Bedi and Srinivas Venkataraghavan were prominent, Warne revived spin bowling in the 1990s.
He used every weapon in his armoury, often conjuring up made-up words to describe his various deliveries in order to get into a batsman’s head. And he was willing to give the ball a really big tweak and take the risk of being carted out of the ground.
Some of his best battles were with batting legends of that time, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. Both players had the utmost respect for Warne, but that did not prevent the encounters between them turning into fierce battles for supremacy. At times, Warne got the better of the exchanges; at others Lara or Tendulkar did.
But, no matter what happened, it was entertaining cricket of the very best kind.
Warne would have captained Australia after Steve Waugh had it not been for his numerous public faux pas, especially with women. The Australian board apparently had had enough of mavericks leading the team after Ian Chappell.
And the era when input took precedence over output had already arrived; talent was secondary to the way a man or woman behaved and the Australian board was well up in the hypocrisy queue.
Thus Warne had to play out his last years under Ricky Ponting, no slouch in the batting department, but certainly not a great captain. The leggie had a keen cricketing brain and that would have served him well as a leader.
Once he turned to commentary after his retirement, at times his words reflected the sadness he harboured at not being able to lead Australia.
Warne enjoyed particular popularity in India, though his success in that country was never of the magnitude that he enjoyed in other nations like England. But the Indian crowds loved the appearance of a spinner of his calibre as it reminded them of their own past maestros.
His feats encouraged others no end; India’s Anil Kumble and Sri Lanka’s Mutthiah Muralitharan followed in his wake. But Warne was one of a kind, a once-in-a-generation cricketer who followed his own drum.
May his soul rest in peace.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.
Australian cricket star Usman Khawaja has sparked an unlikely diplomatic incident after a function at the New Zealand Prime Mister's residence. On Tuesday, the…
Pakistan have indicated that Abdullah Shafique will be banished from the slips in Sydney after his costly drops behind the wicket cruelled Pakistan in…
How many people watched the Australia A versus New Zealand A series? There did not seem to be very many spectators at the ground…
It’s always a stress when a champion retires, especially when that champion is hard to replace. How do you substitute Shane Warne, for instance?…
And breathe. Finally, inevitably, the Ashes is over. At some points over the last five weeks it felt as if we might never stop…
Cameron Green is a talent. Over 1000 Test runs, an IPL century, and some of the safest hands in the gully within world cricket,…
