WARNIE’S NT REALITY CHECK
DARWIN remained a “special place” for the late Shane Warne where he received the “kick up the arse” his burgeoning career needed, friend and former MP Ken Vowles says.
The cricketing world has been stunned by the death of the sport’s greatest spin bowler from a suspected heart attack in a Thailand villa.
Vowles became unlikely friends with the blond bamboozler during his time at the Australian Cricket Academy in Adelaide in the early 1990s.
However, he said “Warnie” developed a “real affinity” for Darwin after being sent home on a Greyhound bus for “playing up” during an academy trip which reportedly involved an act of “mooning”.
“It took three or four days to get home,” Vowles told NT News.
“It’s a nightmare when you’ve been flying everywhere and you’re on the cusp of making it.
“It was a real reality shock (for Warne).”
The young spinner was told he needed to improve his attitude or he would end up just “another bloke who can bowl some leg spin who could have made it”, Vowles recalled.
Warne would quit the academy and return to his native Victoria, but Vowles believed Darwin remained a “special place” despite the acrimonious exit.
“Darwin is where he got his kick up the arse. That really kicked him off,” he said.
Warne returned to Darwin in July 2004 for the Top End’s second Test match, taking 3-20 in a 149-run win over Sri Lanka.
Vowles said although he and Warne were “polar opposites”, they bonded at the academy over their excess weight and aversion to running.
He also recalled the academy demanding its inductees have a parttime job and contribute to society.
However, Warne was having none of that, Vowles remembered.
“Warnie didn’t like that, so he got an ABN and got his mum and dad to pay him each week,” he said.
“He was like, ‘I’m not doing that, mate’. I’m just going to sunbake and eat chips and bowl leg spin and smoke durries’. And that’s what he did.”