Great Achievers and Characters in Australian Cricket

SHANE WARNE, THE GREAT CRICKETER AND SHOWMAN

Shane Warne’s passing on 4 March 2022 was a stunning moment for many Australians, who will always recall where they were when they heard the news about his heart attack in the island resort on Koh Samui, ­Thailand. In that respect it is like the car-accident death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Paris in 1997, and the assassination of American President John Kennedy, in Dallas in 1963. ­The common emotion was shock. In each a rare, charismatic and attractive human being had lost their life far too early.

Th­e outpouring of feeling for Warne drew out tales of his good nature and generosity. Countless cricketers when young had his poster on their bedroom walls. He was an inspiration to sports-mad Australians, thanks to his attacking style that was always accompanied by a smile. It also had much to do with him changing the game, and making it alluring for TV viewers, as leg-spin once again was the game’s ultimate art.

Before his emergence, cricket was dominated by West Indian pace quartets, who battered and bruised batsmen, and often took six or seven minutes an over to do it. Such was their short-pitching that many shots were taken out of the game. It was impossible to drive forward of the wicket, and risky to attempt hooks and cuts. Batting survival became the norm.

Warne transformed all that. He took less than two minutes to bowl an over. He was as aggressive as any quick, provoking batsmen with great slow bowling and cheeky, sometimes confrontational commentary on the field. Normally spinners are taciturn. They use their brains to out-think their opponents. Warne did all that and added a touch of spice by his confident manner, which is a characteristic of speedmen who can inflict pain with a well-directed bouncer. Warne used unmatched revolutions of the turning ball, which emitted a whirring sound. It was his unique intimidatory method.

All this – the manner, the skill, the confidence and his speeding up of the game – made him built for TV. In offices and homes everywhere, attention turned to the screen when Warnie came on to bowl. Viewers knew that something was bound to happen. Warne on the box became part of the living room furniture.

Every kid wanted to bowl like him. The game became attractive to vast audiences again. Sir Donald Bradman loved his spirit and what he did for the game. The Don believed there was no greater spectacle in cricket than an outstanding wrist-spinner bowling to a fine batsman. It revived memories of his battles in state games with Bill O’Reilly, whom Bradman ranked as the best bowler of all time.

Warne’s star burned brightly in the public eye for three decades, from 1992 to 2022, half of it as a brilliant Test player on the field and the second half living in the fast lane, with expensive cars and glamorous women. He was always fabulous copy for all media, whether playing poker or commenting on cricket, or his entanglements off the field. How many superstars with fans such as Elton John and Mick Jagger would be on the sex dating website Tinder? Warne’s charm and apparent honesty about his carnal pursuits allowed him to slide under, or over, the radar of the #MeToo movement, just. There were bound to be coming collisions with Warne and those who disapproved of his entitled hedonistic behaviour, especially with his drive to have movies made about himself.

But his death has put paid to all that.

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In 1993 I was in the UK and Russia researching a book on espionage, The Fifth Man, yet determined to see the Ashes cricket series. My flying in and out of both countries was noted with some bemusement by the KGB people I was interviewing. Only one understood my interest in the game. That happened to be the most important former master spy, Yuri Ivanovich Modin. He was not a fan of the game, but had been invited in his days at the Soviet Embassy in London to attend the Lord’s Second Test of the 1956 Ashes. He was fascinated at the passion the game engendered even among the staid Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Members. Modin, a natural psychologist, who handled all the British double agents recruited to the Communist cause with aplomb, thought he might learn more about the British psyche. He knew the game had gone on at Lord’s during World War II, despite Luftwaffe bombs being dropped near the ground.

Modin also was aware that two of his top double agents loved cricket. Kim Philby was a serious fan. So was the Third Baron Victor Rothschild, who I named as the Fifth Man in the British ring of spies recruited by the KGB in the 1930s. He had been an outstanding young player in county cricket.

That 1993 Ashes threw up a new superstar in Shane Keith Warne, whose spin bowling would change the face of cricket.

In that magic UK summer, he announced himself as a competitor of note who could mesmerise batsmen with his bag of wizard spinning tricks. Warne, with his mop of blond hair, had a form of Aussie glamour, similar to the stars of the sunny TV soap Neighbours, which portrayed a fictional carefree suburban life unavailable in the UK. He was never out of the papers and made good copy for the summer.

That Ball

Shane Warne, nicknamed ‘Hollywood’ because of his blond hair and matching flair, began rolling his arms like a butterfly swimmer, then stretching as Allan Border glanced over at him. Moments earlier, after 74 minutes of England’s first innings of the opening Test of the Ashes Series 1993 at Old Trafford, Merv Hughes had Michael Atherton caught behind. This brought the pugnacious Mike Gatting to the wicket to join his skipper Graham Gooch, who looked in command. His team had started well and were 1-71 in answer to Australia’s mediocre innings of 289.

Warne felt a nervous tingle. Border, the on-field general, concentrated so much on the game plan that he rarely made eye contact, unless it meant a bowling change. Craig McDermott, who had not looked penetrating, finished his over. Border motioned to Warne.

‘Warnie, you’re on next over,’ the captain mouthed. Warne took a deep breath as he moved to his position behind square leg. Hughes steamed in for another over and the leg-spinner felt a slight clamminess in the fingers. This was it. He was about to bowl in an Ashes Test for the first time. Border wasn’t going to protect him by waiting until the quicks had broken into the middle order. He was throwing Warne into the frontline early to take on two of the best players of spin in cricket.

Gooch took a four and a two off Hughes and the over ended. Gatting would be facing Warne. The gritty Englishman, with his gladiator forearms and nose flattened like the front metal of a Roman helmet, had won a place back in the Test team following a four-year absence after bludgeoning bowlers in the counties in the first month of the season. He had led England to its last Ashes victory over Australia in 1986–87. Now ‘Gatt’ was back to continue where he left off as the Aussie tormentor. He and Gooch had a prearranged plan to destroy Warne. Graeme Hick had carted Warne all over the riverside field in the opening tour game under the Norman cathedral at Worcestershire. That was not a Test, but the intent was the same: belt him into submission.

Warne rolled his arm over to Hughes, who roared a few words of encouragement, more like a football coach than a cricketer. ‘Carn, Hollywood, you can do it!’ But Hollywood was not thinking about glittering success. He just wanted to get the ball on the pitch on a good length. Border set the field and looked across to see if Warne approved. He scanned the placings, nodded, rubbed his right palm on the grass and began flipping the ball in the air. Gatting settled in, substantial derriere jutting out and face forward, all grim determination. It was that challenging look that caused Warne to focus.

‘Pitch it on leg-stump and spin it hard’ was the thought on his adrenalin-pumped mind. One last look around the field, a supportive grunt from Hughes, and in. It was a faster swagger to the wicket than normal. Warne dropped his shoulder, trying not to over-pitch a full toss. The ball curled with a left-to-right drift and landed well outside the leg stump in the beginnings of a rough. Gatting lunged forward to block it. The ball darted like a cobra past Gatting’s copybook positioning of bat and pads. It clipped the off stump, sending the bail high as keeper Healy leapt in the air with it.

The ball had snapped a metre across the pitch.

Yet it was the dip and curve that had left the Englishman standing frozen like a statue. He heard the death rattle, but didn’t believe it.

Healy rushed the length of the pitch to embrace Warne. Gatting stood there, only making eye contact with the umpires, first at the bowler’s end, then at square leg. The look asked, ‘Had ’keeper Healy knocked the stumps? The ball couldn’t have done that, could it?’

Neither umpire reacted. There was no raising of the finger for a confirmation of what everyone on the field apart from the batsman knew. He had been clean bowled.

Gatting finally moved, more of a bewildered straggle than a march, back to the pavilion. Only the English manager, Keith Fletcher, dared go near his charge, who was undoing his pads. Gatting was not angry, just stunned.

‘What happened?’ Fletcher asked. ‘It seemed to spin a yard!’

‘I don’t know,’ Gatting responded, ‘it must have.’

‘Your front pad was . . .’

‘I had it covered.’

‘It must have hit the rough.’

‘It turned all right.’

‘It must’ve spun at least a yard.’

Fletcher added some words of comfort and let Gatting settle down alone in the dressing-room.

On the field, Warne’s nerves evaporated as Robin Smith took block. If Gatting could club you to death, Smith could massacre. He had already done this in a one-dayer, hammering Australia’s finest for a record 167 not out. He was fresh and ready to continue that in the Test. Yet there was a problem, perhaps just a tactical one, yet a problem nevertheless. Warne had not played in the one-dayer. Smith had not faced a ball from him since 1990 when the leg-spinner was a novice at the Cricket Academy.

Smith blocked the first and crunched a straight drive for four off Warne’s second. The English crowd roared their approval. This was more like it. Gooch played out another over at the other end and then Smith faced the spinner again. Smith groped at another ball, which hit the deck more or less in the same spot as that ball to Gatting. It too spun sharply. Instead of cannoning into the stumps, it took the outside edge of the bat and carried to Taylor at slip.

Warne liked this delivery as much as the one that got Gatting and all the glory.

After play that night the England players came into the Australian dressing-room for a drink.

‘Bloody hell, Warnie,’ Gatting said, ‘what happened?’

Warne was stuck for words, even a little embarrassed.

‘Sorry, mate,’ Warne said. ‘Bad luck.’

The media wanted to know all about that ball. England’s manager Keith Fletcher remarked: ‘It turned three feet comfortably. Gatt couldn’t believe it, nor could anyone else.’

The quote was recorded in all the papers, along with analysis that concentrated on Warne’s skill and sudden success. The English team, reading the comments the next morning at breakfast and watching the interminable replays of that ball on TV news, was damaged psychologically.

Richie Benaud on BBC TV remarked: ‘It’s one of the best balls I’ve ever seen in Test cricket, and I’ve seen some.’ By Sunday, two days later, cricket writer Robin Marler in the Sunday Times took it a notch further, calling the delivery ‘the ball of the century’. Not to be outdone, Richard Williams in the Independent on Sunday announced it as ‘the best ball ever seen in cricket history’.

The tabloids went even further over the top.

Warne himself, when quizzed about it, said: ‘I got a bit lucky with Gatting.’ A score of scribes scribbled the immortal words.

Such hype meant that England players would find it hard facing Warne for the rest of the six-Test series.

Warne established himself with that ball in 1993 as the best spinner in the world, a position he maintained for the next fifteen years, taking 708 wickets in Tests.