Ball of the Century a fluke, says Warne after 25 years
You can’t manufacture the ‘Ball of the Century’; it happens by fluke. At least Shane Warne seems to be of that opinion. Twenty five years after he gave fans a new reason to fall head over heels in love with leg spin again, Warne doesn’t fail to recount how that single delivery changed his life.
“As a leg-spinner, you always try to bowl a perfect leg-break every ball and I managed to do it first up which was pretty, like I said, was a fluke really,” Warne said in a video released by ICC commemorating the delivery which was bowled on June 4, 1993.
At the time though, Gatting wasn’t at the top of his game. More than a decade into a career on the wane, that dismissal perhaps earned Gatting a lasting memory he didn’t ask for. What stood out was the way Warne unleashed those rips on the ball. It was almost deigned to spin so sharply after pitching. Warne remembers how he came up with that ‘perfect delivery’.
“It changed my life really back on the field and off the field. It was
one of those deliveries which all leg-spinners want to bowl and I am proud I have bowled it, especially to someone like Mike Gatting, a fantastic player.”
With over a 1000 wickets in the Test and ODI formats combined, Warne is now regarded as the greatest leg-spinner. Warne was
never easy to read and it was only in his maiden Ashes series against England in 1994 that Warne finally came to the party. Before that tour, Warne had played in 10 Tests but only managed to pick 31 wickets, including 1/150 in a forgettable debut against India where Ravi Shastri
famously carted him to all parts of the ground. He never really got the better of India, especially after Sachin Tendulkar started giving him nightmares since that dusty Sharjah evening. Among all the regular Test nations, India conceded just 43 Test wickets to Warne. The same can’t be said
about South Africa and New Zealand against whom Warne took 130 and 103 wickets respectively.
Warne’s best was reserved for England, against whom he took 195 wickets at an average of 23.25. And best of those scalps has to be the one Gatting will hate to remember for the rest of his life.