Still spinning from Warne’s Rosellas run
EVERY time a beer is poured at Lethbridge Cricket Club, the Rosellas can raise a glass to the “king”.
The bar at the Rosellas’ home ground is the bar that Shane Warne built, thanks to profits from a one-off charity game the legendary cricket superstar played on the ground in 2010.
A feature piece for the legspinner’s short-lived talk show Warnie!, the match was played on a Wednesday afternoon in late December and drew a huge crowd.
Thanks to a sponsorship from McDonald’s, Lethbridge was handed a $15,000 cheque for staging the game and its opponent Geelong West was handed a cool $7500.
The Rams were hand-picked as an opponent by Lethbridge because the two sides had met in a midweek T20 match that season and the Rosellas fancied their chances of taking down the then-GCA1 club, even if the match was purely hit and giggle.
Then-president Damian Dillon said the money was put straight in to the club to build a new bar and cool room, with Warne’s charisma still keeping the beer cold at Lethbridge even after his death in Thailand last week, at age 52.
“It was a ripper, it was a really good day,” Dillon, who called in a sickie to be there, said.
Lethbridge was chosen for the match because of the exploits of teen Shane Dillon, who had plundered a doublecentury in an under-17 match that summer. Dillon’s form did not waver, as he posted junior and senior centuries to follow up his 202 not out, winning the Rosellas the rights to host the match as part of a competition on Warne’s TV show.
It was an extravaganza Lethbridge has rarely seen, with shuttle buses bringing thousands to the town from Geelong McDonald’s, as Merv Hughes put on the whites to captain Geelong West against Warne’s Lethbridge, and former Test opener Michael Slater commentated from the sidelines.
Geelong West won the game, with Warne belted in his two overs, but it hardly mattered.
Despite the cash – plus the profits over the bar on the day – the biggest win for Lethbridge was a half-hour session with the playing group behind closed doors.
Shane Dillon remembered Warne sat the group down and urged them to ask him anything about his life and career, before he posed for photos with every player.
“Not many clubs can say they have had Shane Warne come and play a game for then, I know it was only hit and giggle but he still came down and he put the hat on,” Damian Dillon said.
“It was an unbelievable day for the club, it still gets talked about now.”