Game’s greatest spinner bamboozled batsmen with spin and accuracy

Shane Warne was an icon of the modern game and nobody came close to him as a spinner.

The reason? Because he spun the ball more than anyone I can remember. He created enormous turn. When you bowl with spin it is very hard to bowl accurately so usually, as a batsman, you expect the odd loose ball that is easy to hit.

What was unique about him was that apart from the enormous spin he generated, he was so accurate that batsmen were always under pressure. First they had to read what he was bowling, and second, he never gave them any easy balls to hit, and that is what made him so special.

His stock delivery was a wonderful leg-spinner. He bowled his googly a bit, not much, but bowled top spinners, and a slider (a leg-spinner that does not turn and slides into the batsman). I think the most fearsome ball he had until he hurt his shoulder was the flipper. It came out of the side of the hand, so it went straight on, deceiving the batsman expecting it to turn. It was a wonderful delivery.

Even after the operation on his shoulder, when he could no longer bowl the flipper, it did not decrease the amount of wickets he took or the pressure he put on batsmen, which showed his great mental strength, wonderful character and brilliance at psyching batsmen out.

I remember him coming to England and saying he had a new delivery, the zooter. I laughed. He already had fine deliveries, but here he was saying he had another one just to get in people’s heads. It was like 57 varieties of Heinz Baked Beans. He was just winding England batsmen up. Brilliant.

Geoffrey Boycott (left) speaks with Shane Warne and Michael Vaughan in 2014.Credit:Getty Images

He was just very special. He was a fierce competitor as well. He liked banter with the batsmen. But it was humorous, not nasty sledging. For me, he is the third best cricketer in history behind Sir Don Bradman and Sir Garry Sobers in terms of winning games for their teams.

He was also an inspiration because so many people wanted to bowl leg-spin like him, but never got close to his standards.

For me, he is the greatest spinner. I never saw the great Bill O’Reilly, who Bradman said was the best he ever faced. He bowled a quicker leg-spinner than Shane, but did not spin it as much.

Warne was an enormous turner of the ball and because he was so accurate, he could have so many fielders around the bat. For a great percentage of his career, he bowled with three or four fielders around the bat attacking. You have to be so accurate when you have fields like that.

If he got the length and line wrong, those close-in fielders would have been in physical danger, but his teammates had the confidence to stay there. He was that good.

I once said to him, “I would have loved to face you”. Not because I was arrogant enough to think I would play him better than anyone else. But to me, it would have been a great challenge to face the best spin bowler of his generation and see if I could succeed. If you did, it was like climbing Mount Everest. I had the privilege of playing a lot of great fast bowlers – Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Peter Pollock, Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson – I know what that challenge was like.

To face Shane would have been unique, and I would have loved to have had that chance to have a go at it.

I know Muttiah Muralitharan took more wickets, but for me Shane was in a different league. You have to be honest, many people around the world felt Murali’s action was a problem.

I am not being nasty about Murali or belittling his performances, but there was never any doubt about Shane’s action. Every time I happened to be working in the same series, we always stopped and chatted. He had a great cricket brain.

He would have made a wonderful captain of Australia. Sometimes authorities do not want people who have larger than life personalities. They want someone who will not get into trouble off the field.

But when I listened to him on commentary, he would say what a team should be doing before it happened, not following the ball. That is what he did as a bowler. He worked out batsmen. That transmitted itself when he was commentating. He could think several moves ahead. He could shift fielders around like chess pieces to work out how to take wickets. You need a sharp mind and quick brain to do that.

The first time I saw him was when he bowled the Gatting ball at Old Trafford in 1993.

Before the game, I spoke to Bob Simpson, the Australia team coach. I said I thought he would win a Test match for Australia one day. Then he bowled the Gatting ball, and I said he would win more than one Test if he can pitch it outside leg and hit the top of off.

It is so sad because 52 is no age to die. He still had a lot to give the game at that age. You never know when you are going to go. Perhaps a few men will have heart check-ups now after this. We see footballers having problems, thinking they are fit athletes, but it is not necessarily true.

You could be born with something you do not know about that becomes a problem in later life. At 52, a former athlete, he probably had never thought about ill health. It is such a shame. He has gone 30 years too soon.

The Telegraph, London

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