There are very few cricketers who can claim to be box office, gold standard stars in any era that they might have played in. Shane Warne was one of these.
He was neither ahead of the times nor born too late to be celebrated and recognised. In that sense, Warne made his generation his own.
Arriving on the scene as a bleached blonde beach bum from Melbourne who loved his pineapple pizza a bit too much and departing, at 52, when he had just declared on social media that he was beginning a health drive to get back in shape again, Warne was larger than life.
This was primarily because he was, along with Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble, the most lethal spin bowler of his time. Even in this, Warne was a man apart.
Where Murali was freakish, and Kumble was unorthodox, Warne was a textbook leg spinner. The gentle, almost lazy approach to the crease belied the effort he put in, either via muscular shoulder or whip wrist.
His Test haul of 708 wickets was bettered only by Murali, and when you add to this 293 scalps in One-Day International you arrive at a tally of 1001 international wickets, which is unlikely to be bettered by any Australian. The key number in this is that he did not prey on the weak: Warne has 17 wickets against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the weakest teams of his time, while Murali, whose overall tally is 800 Test wickets, had 176 against the same oppositions.
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But Warne is not about numbers. All cricketers claim to have no knowledge of statistics, but every bowler can readily recall most of their scalps.
In 1993 Warne announced himself with that most famous of deliveries, one that floated, dipped and turned square to open up Mike Gatting like a tin of the bowler’s favourite baked beans, pegging back the stumps. It is referred to as the ball of the century, but if you asked Warne he would tell you that he bowled cut deliveries regularly.
This was part of the Warne magic. He saw the world, and himself, differently from mere mortals. In every ball, Warne sensed what was possible, dreamed of what was ideal and delivered what was unbelievable.
Warne did not seek out headlines, but he was never far from the limelight. Even when Australia occasionally struggled in what was their modern golden era, Warne was right up there in the list of top wicket takers. This was a man who did not understand the meaning of failure, because he so rarely experienced it.
When he began, there were few signs that he would be one of the modern greats. Against India, at Sydney in 1992, he returned 1 for 150, and even the sole wicket he picked up was that of a batsman who had made 206, Ravi Shastri.
But, it did not take long for him to establish himself as the final missing piece in Australia’s quest for world domination. They had the batting, the fielding, the quick bowling, the supply line in domestic cricket, the coaching acumen but they needed a quality spinner to take their success at home and replicate it around the world. Warne completed Australia.
It is no surprise that the tributes have flowed thick and fast since Warne’s untimely passing via a suspected heart attack while in Thailand.
Few players of the modern era have enjoyed the respect of opponents and the adoration of fans — even neutrals — as Warne. Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar, two of the greatest batsmen the game has seen, rated Warne as an equal. Their battles were fierce, and while the men from Mumbai or Trinidad might have bested Warne, they knew that they had to use every ounce of the resources at their disposal to do so.
When Wisden, the traditional last word in cricket, polled 100 experts around the world to pick their five cricketers of the century in their millennium edition, Warne was the only person still playing to make the cut. Don Bradman was the only one to get every vote, and the legendary Garry Sobers came in second with 90 votes. English batting giant Jack Hobbs came in third with 30 votes, and then there was Warne, with 27 who even put Viv Richards in the shade.
Such was the aura Warne enjoyed in the world of cricket, his fire burning bright with no limitation of time or space. He was one for the ages, and in his passing, cricket lost not only the most watchable spinner of all time, but a man who lived life large and found, and gave joy, in equal measure.
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