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Warne
Cricket 

Shane Warne, you were not meant to go. Not this way. Not so soon.

Meenakshi Rao

Living legend Shane Warne spun out of life as shockingly as he turned that ball of the century, coming out of nowhere and being completely unfathomable.

The Australian leg spin legend died at 52, rather was found dead in a villa at the holiday island of Koi Samui in Thailand after a medical team failed to revive him and ruled it was suspected heart attack.

Just 52, absolutely fit — magicians don’t pass like this unless of course it has something to do with COVID-19 from which he had recovered just the other month in August 2021.

Shane Warne was not just a master spinner in cricket. He was what you would describe as unprecedented, someone who inspired all spinners without exception, created news both on and off field and was a tower of the game which no one could overlook, not his fiercest oppositions, not his cricketing board and not even fans across nations who generally are reticent to like let alone praise the fiercely arrogant performers that Aussies have been.

Statistics may lionise Warne’s achievements but 708 Test wickets and 293 ODI wickets do not encapsulate the personality, the one and only spin legend that Warne was.

The colourful Enfant terrible of cricket, always stoking controversies off the field was never ever underestimated in the middle. When Warney spun the ball, greats walked, nonplussed, incredulous and totally in awe of the ball that often crossed their armour with a deceit so deceptive that it could only be magic to explainers.

Be it Mike Gatting who walked after being bowled by a Warne slow floater or any other batting great across continents, Warne could do what no man in cricket could ever do — really, really spin magic from the ball.

At the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup in England, Shane Warne was the centre of attraction as he stood on the sidelines with an expert commentary contract with the official broadcasters. He drew more crowd and camera clicks than all other greats in the commentary zone.

Dressed in black with his signature blonde hair, he looked years younger after being put through the gym machines by his former girlfriend Liz Hurley.

The dapper cricketer was news — good bad and unbelievable. He was banned for failing a drug test, banned again for inappropriate behaviour on the field, got a divorce notice by wife Simone for appearing in threesome nude pictures and then got into news yet again for sending sextexts to an English nurse.

But all this while, he was revered for the guile he spun on the field and making news — good news — in the game as no one had ever done before, or is likely to in future.

Highest wicket-taker in history till Murlitharan overtook him, Warney redefined spin bowling and made it an integral part of the Aussie winning battery which almost always relied on pace attacks, much like West Indies.

But Warney was never an oddity in the team as Larry Gomes was for the West Indians who jokingly called him an embarrassment in a land of fierce quicks.

In his 15-year career, he constantly generated disbelief over his celestial ability to turn the ball, sometimes even 45 degrees, an art and science yet to be broken down. Taking note of this, Wisden named him one of the five cricketers of the century and he rests pretty in ICC’s Hall of Fame.

Back in India, this alagh level ka awesome Aussie was the most feared and most respected one for his singular flamboyance with the ball. He debuted at Sydney against India and is in IPL’s hall of fame for winning the inaugural edition of the million dollar baby as skipper and coach of Rajasthan Royals, when greats his age tagged and stayed away from T20 as a format only for the youth.

Indeed, he stood out — be it for searing brilliance or equally searing controversies. He was a legend who passed too young, too soon and too unexpectedly, just a day after condoling wicket keeper Rod Marsh’s death.

A lover of spaghetti Bolognese, pizza and beer, a shooting, guitar and xBox buff, Shane Warne was an avid fan of Death Metal — so long magician both in death and for the metal you sported throughout your eventful and syrupy life.