Bowlin’ Shane
“Can I borrow your chair mate” — for a starry-eyed college-going kid, the Aussie accent was magical. The sense of bewilderment went up a thousand-fold when the boy turned around and spotted Shane Warne standing less than a foot away. I quietly muttered a ‘sure’ and stared long and hard at my friend, Nakul who was too shocked to say a word. On that day (October 10th, 2004), through a combination of pluck and sheer luck, Nakul and I managed to get photos with some of the finest cricketers to grace the sport — including Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, and Matthew Hayden. A photo with Warne, however, turned out to be a bridge too far. Perhaps this made sense, I tell myself. Warne was the greatest in an era of greats. He was a genius with otherworldly gifts and an unmatched ability to conjure up acts of magic that lay well beyond the reach of other mortals.
I have always been a stats guy. Numbers don’t lie, I like to believe. And cricket, perhaps more than any other sport endorses my view. However, in its glorious history there have been a few players who come along and leave behind a legacy that goes way beyond numbers. Shane Warne was undoubtedly one such. He had it all — the wickets, the average, the strike rate, the consistency, the big-match temperament, the bouncebackability and the longevity but Warne was something extra. He was larger than the game. He turned heads. Spectators and television viewers could not take their eyes off Warne even if there were other greats on the field at the same time. He had a charm unlike any other cricket I have watched. When Warne had the ball in his hand every second was pure theatre. He wasn’t as much a cricketer as he was a sorcerer. You were hooked, entranced, mesmerised, and utterly captivated by his performance. Perhaps quite the same happened to the unfortunate batsmen facing him.
Leg spin is an exceptionally challenging craft to master. Warne transformed it into an art form and painted several masterpieces. Right from the moment he started twirling the ball to the point of delivery, everything was perfect. The run-up was deceptively simple — one could just mistake it to be a short stroll. Then came the body movement. The balance, the pivot, the torsional twist followed by the classic release. What followed was nothing short of wizardry. The ball would drift away towards leg stump almost as if it were being controlled by his mind, lull the batsman into believing this was an innocuous delivery that had no demons before the extraordinary revolutions imparted brought it back towards the stumps all too suddenly to land the sucker punch. Here was a hypnotist who could make you sway to his will from 22 yards out. He had an astute cricket brain and worked over the finest of batsmen psychologically. Watching Warne slowly build a plan and execute it step by step was joy beyond words.
Fast bowlers intimidate with pace and bounce. As a spinner one cannot often claim to have the same effect on most batsmen, let alone the finest. Warne was different though. He engaged in two battles — the one the batsman thought he was in and the one the batsman did not know but was actually in. Often, Warne would feed the batsmen boundary balls slowly building a sense of complacency. With their guard relaxed and minds wandering, he was primed to go for the kill. His tremendous control meant he was able to land the ball in the right spot and have the batsmen on a string. A premeditated aggressive shot, a half-hearted drive, an attempt to kick the ball away or even a decent leave was a slow but steady launchpad for Warne’s psychological weapons. As part of his grand strategy, he often appealed, questioned the umpire’s decisions, let out multiple ‘oohs and aahs’ while also engaging in banter that started sowing the seeds of doubt in a batsman’s mind. Once this was achieved, the rest was a mere formality. The Basit Ali dismissal off the last ball of the day captures this perfectly. Few batsmen survived this examination and only the supremely focused, gifted, and aggressive batsmen such as Lara and Tendulkar could lay claim to any semblance of dominance and success.
Writing off Warne was never wise. When things around him seemed hopeless, be it on the field or off the field, he had the rare ability to elevate his level. While there have been numerous such occasions, the ones that spring to mind immediately are the 1999 World Cup semi-final, the 2004 series in Sri Lanka and the 2005 Ashes. In the 1999 tournament, Australia had only just been hanging on and their hopes seemed slimmer than ever after they had been bundled out for just 213 in Edgbaston. The South African openers had started superbly, and the Aussie hopes were ebbing by the minute. In a spell for the ages, Warne turned the match on its head by first removing Herschelle Gibbs with a ripping leg break that had him prodding cluelessly and then knocking over Kirsten and Cronje. Towards the end of what turned out to be an all-time classic, he came back and snared Jacques Kallis, the top scorer. He carried the form to the finals where a hapless Pakistan found him too hot to handle and succumbed meekly. Warne had resurrected Australia and set the stage for their continued World Cup dominance.
The 2003 World Cup was perhaps the abyss of Warne’s career. He was banned for a year after testing positive for a substance that had found its way into his body via a harmless diuretic handed to him by his mom. While this would have destroyed most cricketers, he managed to reinvent himself by adding more guile and experience to complement his unending repertoire of skills. In Sri Lanka, then a very difficult place to tour, he bowled Australia to a 3–0 win with a 26-wicket series haul. The series win, that must surely go down as one of the most extraordinary performances, had a lot to do with Warne’s resurgence.
During the 2005 Ashes he fought a series of off-field allegations and a broken marriage. The English media took the opportunity and gave him a harrowing time. Unfazed by the circus around him, Warne singlehandedly kept Australia afloat and fighting in this immortal series. He nearly won them the 2nd Test at Edgbaston with ball and bat, displayed tremendous grit with the bat in the drawn 3rd Test at Old Trafford before nearly ambushing the home team in the tense 4th innings chase at Trent Bridge. His 40 wickets in the series demonstrated once more his laser sharp focus on the game and an uncanny knack of thriving in adversity.
It is quite hard to digest the fact that Warne is no more. His influence on the game and its millions of followers is immeasurable. Waking up at 5 am to watch a Test match in Australia was a joyful ritual and listening to Benaud describe Warne was perhaps as good as it ever gets in cricket. For once, I feel I should shed the maturity and calm that comes with age and go back to being that kid in awe of the master. I want to cry, watch dozens of YouTube videos, re-read Gideon Haigh’s outstanding book, imitate Warne in my shadow cricket sessions, and painfully acknowledge that there can never be another Warne as I bowl leg spin to Nakul in the nets.
Drift, spin, loop, and turn;
Wasn’t there many a lesson to learn?
You thrived under immense pressure;
Hasn’t cricket just lost an invaluable treasure?
A dying craft you turned into a form of art;
Warnie, your memories lodge deep in my heart.
