I was excited and overwhelmed; an imminent emotional reaction upon receiving a communication from Cricket Australia’s Brendon McClements that he would try his best for an exclusive interview with Shane Warne, a couple of days before Mumbai’s three-day friendly in 1998, but nonetheless a first-class match against the Mark Taylor led Australia at the Brabourne Stadium, Cricket Club of India.
Some seventeen years into sports journalism, the occasion was doubtless a fanboy moment for me even at the age of 42; the sheer prospect of interacting with a champion leg spinner who had mesmerised the cricket world with 300 odd wickets and was going to be seen in action for the first time on Indian soil at Chepauk, Chennai in March 1998.
McClements had promised a few minutes of interaction with the blond haired who was already accorded the status as the greatest tweaker to be playing the game, and it transpired after a meet the players event organised at the Taj Mahal Palace in Colaba. It did not turn out to be a full interview, both sitting across each other on a bar stool. There was just time enough for three questions and the first one was the “Ball of the Century” he had tossed to England’s Mike Gatling in the 1993 Ashes at Old Trafford, Manchester. He paused and described the memorable ball; his words recorded in a Sony cassette tape.
The joy of spending fleeting moments with an extraordinary cricketer and character who uplifted the sport is still fresh. I can still visualise the meeting at the South Mumbai hotel where the Australian team was put up. The then-forthcoming skirmish against Mumbai – without Wasim Jaffer and Ajit Agarkar — was the talk of the town; the match being billed as “Clash of the Titans, Tendulkar versus Warne”, although the Mumbaikar did his best to play it down saying it was just a match between Mumbai and Australia.
Warne was at the receiving end at the Brabourne with left-hander Amit Pagnis given the license to go after the leg-spin tweaker, and with Tendulkar going at full throttle to make a 192-ball unconquered 204. Warner finished at 0/111 sending down 16 overs, and the Australian captain Taylor was sporting and gracious to say that his team was outplayed by the Mumbai side.
The very next year I had the opportunity to see Warne dash Pakistan’s hopes of winning the World Cup with a remarkable spell of 4 for 33 in nine overs at London’s Lords Cricket Ground. But his fans would remember the wickets he took of the South African openers Herschelle Gibbs and Gary Kirsten in the semi-finals at Edgbaston. Warne took 4 for 29 in ten overs in this match. Two days before the final, South Africa’s Bob Woolmer described and admired the variety of deliveries Warne possessed, while in a conversation with myself and Aajkaal’s Debasish Datta at a London suburb McDonalds.
Warne described as a genius and a cricketer with a remarkable cricketing brain by former South Africa captain Ali Bacher took 43 wickets at 47.18 against India, 34 of which were on Indian pitches during his from 1998 to 2004.
In a conversation from his home in Johannesburg, a shocked Bacher said: “I met him first after South Africa returned to international cricket and when we toured Australia for the 1993 94 series. The first Test was In Melbourne. It rained for a few days and the Test ended in a draw. And then we went to Sydney. We won that Test (by 5 runs), we were lucky. But it was for the first time I saw Warne bowl. He took 12 wickets. I used to bat at No.3, and I was not good at picking up googlies and flippers and all the fancy deliveries. I saw him bowl and I couldn’t believe what he was doing with the ball. He had such different deliveries. And I saw him so deeply; a superstar. I saw a genius. Thereafter, he was pleasant and cordial with me. And I interviewed him for my project ‘In conversation’. Look, in my opinion, he was the greatest leg spinner of all time. He had a remarkable creative life. You listen to him as a TV commentator. He was world-class. His knowledge of the game was unbelievable. But he never captained Australia because of a few deviations of the field. But everybody else has said that he would have been a great Australian captain. He had such a great cricketing brain. I’m shattered to hear this. He was a magician with the ball. I am glad I did not have to face him.”
It was in the first season of his long association with the IPL team Rajasthan Royals in 2008 that he spotted the raw talent in Ravindra Jadeja. I covered a few matches at Jaipur and Warne, based on Jadeja’s sprinting ability in the sweeper positions and catching skill, predicted that the left-hander will be the future rockstar of Indian cricket. Warne was the mentor and captain and led his team to a win in the 2008 IPL that revived the career of Shane Watson. He also realised the relevance of the IPL and worked to maximise the potential of the Indian talent in the team.
Warne revived Australian cricket in the 1990s, played nearly one and half decades of international cricket and during this long career showed the flip side of his life, but he will be cherished for how he enriched the game and leg-spin bowling in which he was par excellence. He was a great showman.
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