I am among many cricket folk that would like to pay my respects to the finest legspin bowler in the history of the game. His retirement marks the end of an era. No bowler has dominated world cricket as he has done and I doubt if there will be another as good.
It is worth understanding why Shane Warne is so good and for that you will have to understand the hours of work he put into his trade. For those who do not understand cricket and its nuances and the intricacies of leg spin bowling, it is the hardest art form of the game, it is extremely difficult to master and indeed to teach. Warne, it would seem, was a natural from a young age but spent his life perfecting the art. Indeed what drove him to become this perfectionist, what gave him the drive to become better than anyone else? Only he knows!
Did he set goals? Did he know something that we lesser mortals didn't? Without asking him we will not be able to unravel the answer to these questions. What we do know is that he became the greatest legspinner ever and tormented and teased the greatest players of this era.
Like every bowler he had bad days especially against India in India but as he strives for his 700th Test wicket he becomes in my eyes like Brian Lara scoring 400 runs in a Test innings, as the song goes 'Simply the best'!
The ball that defined his career is the ball that Mike Gatting missed and was bowled off stump. Sounds rather mundane and happens quite a few times during every cricket match but this ball was different. It was special. Why was it so special? For those of you who watch tennis, players of the caliber of Federer, Borg, Sampras, McEnroe had the greatest skill of top spin - it is spin imparted on the ball with a racket. Great golfers have this wonderful ability to impart back spin. Top spin allows the ball to dip, swerve and stay in when all of us think the ball is going out. It defines greatness in many sports.
The ball that bowled Gatting at Old Trafford swerved and dipped so much because Warne was able to impart such a high degree of spin on the ball with his wrist and fingers. To us all it looked like an innocuous ball drifting down the leg side. Gatting too moved his front leg diagonally across because of its leg side direction. It was a natural but fatal mistake. He was hoping the leg would protect the leg stump. Unfortunately it allowed the ball to pitch probably six inches outside leg stump, from there it spun nearly 14 inches clipping the top of off stump and the story of Warne began.
It was a defining moment for him as only a year earlier he had been playing club cricket in England apparently with moderate success. He has since bowled that delivery many times and with very similar results and we have tended to take it for granted. Since then too the mystery flipper, the slider and other types of delivery have invaded our minds and that of the batsmen playing him.
Masochistic batsmen want to face him if only to say that Shane Warne bowled me out. Only a few have mastered his flight and guile and, as Mark Taylor said, his thinking. The skill level of Warne is such that he would be able to work batsmen out and bring them into a position by pinpoint accuracy so that when he changed the ball he would trap them.
Some years ago, Alec Stewart at Brisbane was teased into playing him off the back foot only to be tempted into a pull shot to a flipper which skidded on and bowled him. It would have been normal except the shot that Stewart was playing made him look like a batsman who played for Peak Freens biscuits third eleven, and make no mistake Stewart was a fine player.
The confrontations with Darryl Cullinan were legendary so much so that for a time Darryl was unable to accept that he had a problem; so deep rooted were the psychological scars. Players like Hansie Cronje took him on but also succumbed to his wiles. He was the master of his trade.
The mystical aura that enveloped him mesmerised the players he was bowling to. There was an inevitability that he would take wickets - it became just a matter of time. Not everyone liked him and he was the most aggressive spinner on the field. His appealing for the LBW decisions placed umpires under enormous pressure; it was almost an art form. His ability to bowl people out from the rough might have been his greatest skill. The balls turned so prodigiously that they were unplayable. This skill unrepeatable by another other bowler in World cricket often gave Australia a wicket when the pitch was flat.
His retirement is a great loss for the game but like everything else in this world you cannot stop the clock and he has chosen his time to end his career. I would have loved to see Bradman bat apart from the films, therefore I am very lucky to have witnessed Warne's bowling. My only regret is that I never had the chance to face him and try perhaps to work him out, which makes me out to be a masochist or plain bloody stupid!
I wish him well in his retirement and say thank you for providing myself and all cricket lovers some of the great moments of modern cricket history.
Comments
Posted by: Able Lawrence at March 12, 2007 7:56 AM
No doubt Warne was a one of the greatest of leg spinners ever. However, one must not forget that he was not so spectacular against India. Ravi Shastri and Tendulkar feasted on him in his debut series in Sydney. His success in India (where you get the most spin friendly tracks) was expensive if not mediocre. Presence of Warne allowed Australia to create tracks which aided spin.
Whenever India toured other nations, tracks were designed to aid pace and seam and kill any spin. This will decrease the effectiveness of Indian spinners. So this would definitely affect the record of Anil Kumble and other Indian spinners. With the recent improvement in Indian pace attack, we can expect better results from Indian spinners since other nations can be expected to prepare more balanced tracks.
In my opinion, the greatest spinner ever (all categories) is Muthiah Muralidharan. He has the ability to pick up wickets any where. He has been successful even against India who play spin very well. He has much less support from other bowlers and fielding than a Shane Warne.
I think there is a racist element in the criticism of Murali and belittlement of his achievements. Some of the dismissals by Murali are as spectacular (around the legs for example) if not better than Warney's. Leg spin is always a more spectacular art. To take off spin to such an exalted level is more difficult.
Monty Panesar is being hailed as the great spin knight after a single season (only because he plays for England!). If Murali was from England or Australia, there would have been more voices singing his praise as against the legions waiting with the stilleto to stab his back.
I am not a Srilankan for you to accuse me of bias. But I cannot help but notice the differential standards applied to different players.
Shane Warne is of course one of the greats. But Murali is right up there, if not higher. If any one will surpass Warne, it will be Murali
Able
Posted by: Aftab Baig at March 12, 2007 8:18 AM
Indeed Warne is the best leg spinner ever in the history of cricket.
I remeber the ball that he bold to 'Basit Ali', the ball pitched on the leg stump and cruise between the legs of Basit and hit the middle stump.
Well bowled Warnee.
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