Shane Warne, 1969-2022: Five memories that will live on after him

The blonde bombshell, an evident spring in his step, makes his way to the bowling crease, only to send down a shocker wide down the leg-side. As any batsman would do, Mike Gatting defends almost half-heartedly, not expecting much from a ball that’s already whizzing past his left eye into what he thinks is safe territory. Not quite. Warne’s leg-break turns back in and knocks Gatting’s off-stump. A bamboozled batsman walks back for 4, the ball of the century writes itself into history, and a champion spinner arrives on the scene.

It is only fitting that some of Warne’s greatest moments come right at the start and towards the end of his active cricketing career. How else does one acknowledge his continuous contributions to cricket? Well over a year after retiring from international cricket in 2007 at the age of 38, Shane Warne is tasked with leading a team in 2008 as part of a brand-new T20 tournament called the Indian Premier League.

Decked in royal blue, the spin wizard commands a team full of misfits -- under-the-radar cricketers bought for cheap. Overnight, his captaincy produces stars like, big-hitting opener Swapnil Asnodkar and a little-known gem back then called Ravindra Jadeja. In fact, Warne christened Jadeja ‘Rockstar’ back in the day -- a name that has stayed on through a decade-and-a-half, even as Jadeja has become one of the world’s best all-rounders today.

Together, Asnodkar, Jadeja, the then-South African captain Graeme Smith, Shane Watson, Pakistani left-arm quick Sohail Tanvir and Warne hand the Rajasthan Royals the inaugural IPL trophy. Nobody gave them a chance when the tournament began. The Royals have not won an IPL title ever since. Warne becomes the greatest captain Australia never had.

Not many know this, but Shane Warne pretty much repeated his famous ‘Gatting’ ball almost 12 years later at Australia’s unsuccessful 2005 Ashes campaign in England. Almost as if to prove his ball of the century wasn’t a fluke, Warne bamboozled Andrew Strauss with an unbelievably similar delivery.

On Day Two of the Edgbaston Test of 2005, Warne comes in to bowl with England at 25 for no loss. Future England captain and then-cricketing-prodigy Andrew Strauss is at the crease, trying to negotiate a tricky period of play. In comes Warne, this time around the wicket. He sends down the most classical leg-spin delivery you’d ever see wide down the crease but bang into the footmarks.

Unlike Gatting, Strauss doesn’t even try to defend. Such is his confidence -- there is no way a ball can spin into the stumps this wide off the crease, the footmarks notwithstanding. How wrong Strauss was. For there’s simply no predicting the kind of magic the spin wizard in Warne is accustomed to conjuring up. Strauss’ irreverent padding while shouldering arms makes him look silly as Warne’s leg-spin turns square to crash into the left-hander’s leg stumps. He walks back. England go on to win the Test.

Perhaps one of Shane Warne’s few failures and regrets is the fact that he never lived up to his batting potential. Averaging 17.32 across 199 Test batting innings for Australia with 12 fifties made him a handy bat at Number 8, and dare we say an almost- bowling-all-rounder. In fact, cricketing nostalgia connoisseurs fondly remember the one time Warne came so close to an elusive Test century, but never made the three-figure mark.

It was the New Zealand Tour of Australia in 2001 and the WACA saw the Kiwis pile on 534 before declaring. Australia is in a spot of bother at a little over 200 for the loss of six wickets before Warne comes to the crease. His first boundary is a slash through point. He pulls, drives, and hoicks to shepherd the Aussie tail through unfamiliar batting territory on his way to 99 not out. It’s the last ball of the day and a fresh-faced Daniel Vettori is set to deliver it. Thinking of going for the glory shot on his way to a maiden Test century, Warne hoicks Vettori to straight to the only fielder in the deep, at mid-wicket. Warne is out on 99 and Australia end of 351. He doesn’t score a Test century in the next six years of his remaining Test career. That 99, however, many reckon would go down as a far more impactful Test knock than dead-rubber test hundreds scored by a handful of tail-enders.

Great rivalries often have great personalities at the helm. Such was the case with the Tendulkar-Warne match-up. However, it would be fair to say that this was precisely where Warne met his Waterloo as the Master Blaster dominated the spin wizard in all formats of the game.

After falling to the leg-spin legend in the first innings of the Chennai Test in 1998 for a score of 4, Sachin made up for the failure in the second innings of the same test with a masterful 155. In the limited-overs series that followed, Warne had Sachin’s number again in Kanpur but not before Sachin raced to 100 off 89 balls. He would get Tendulkar out again in the Adelaide Test of 1999, but not before Tendulkar tonked the Aussies for a handy 61. He prised out the Master Blaster again in the next test, but before Sachin scored 52.

In all, Sachin and Warne met 29 times in international cricket with the leg-spin legend dismissing the greatest-ever batsman only four times. In the interim, the cricketing world enjoyed many a memorable encounter between the two.