It all prompted him to remark that just because he did stupid things, did not make him a stupid man. Being in the limelight had the effect of resisting maturity and finding the means to be unapologetic. 'The multitude of mistakes and misjudgements, which somehow made him even more appealing rather than a figure of excoriation, did not prevent him from engaging in good works.'Īway from the cricket pitch, Warne could be remarkably naïve and injudicious. Cricketing authorities, while tolerating his seemingly limitless talent, ensured that this errant figure would never captain Australia. They detected and punished indiscretions, made copy on breaches of protocol. Similar to such mercurial figures as England’s Ian Botham, the press appended themselves like limpets to his every move. David Runciman remarks on this point with edgy accuracy: ‘the mystery balls, the tricksy fields, the elaborate appeals - was just window-dressing.’ In 1989, he was disabused of any professional prospects when he received a dismissive note from St Kilda Football Club after his final trial. Some forget that his first passion was for Australian Rules Football. Paradoxically, he seemed elsewhere from the game, sublimely distracted even as he was executing it. Ironically enough, Warne was so fiendishly good at the craft he did not seem to be consciously practising it. As veteran ABC cricket commentator Jim Maxwell described it, ‘He brought some gamesmanship, some showmanship to the centre of the ground that we hadn’t seen before and he backed it up with enormous skill.’ Former Pakistani player Shahid Afridi, himself no slouch at wrist spinning, eloquently dubbed Warne ‘a university of leg-spin bowling’. Warne bestrode the fields with an action sweetly described by Gideon Haigh as ‘both dainty and menacing, like Ernst Blofeld stroking his white cat.’įrom then, Warne became the luminous cricketer, and more than that, the celebrity sportsman recognised for exploits on and off the field. Leg spin bowling had come into vogue again, having been previously eclipsed by the cricket world’s gluttonous diet of pace through the 1980s.
Then the Ashes in England, and the ‘ball of the century’ to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford. Against the West Indies on home soil, Warne proved memorable. Then came the tour of New Zealand - ominous signals for opposing cricket teams.
But there were already those incipient signs: the slovenly look, the ear piercings, the peroxide hair. Paunchy, exuding a vernacular Australian coarseness, and initially wayward, he received an object lesson from India’s Ravi Shastri and the youthful Sachin Tendulkar at the Sydney Cricket Ground. His debut appearance against India in the 1991-2 home series in Australia was not auspicious. With the late Shane Warne, arguably the finest slow bowler cricket has ever produced, it edged towards him. Lawrence that he had a tendency to back into the limelight.
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