KING’S LYON FEEDING
“WHEN you’ve got the ball in your hand, you control the time and tempo of the game. Once you realise that, you’ll play the game on your terms.”
That was the best piece of advice I ever received from Shane Warne.
It came at an important time for me and Australian cricket.
It was just after stumps on the fourth day at Edgbaston, the first Test of the 2019 Ashes series. Warnie messaged our security manager, Frank Dimasi, to ask if I wanted to meet him for a chat. The pitch was starting to turn and there was a bit of talk around that I needed to bowl Australia to victory the next day.
I don’t know why he reached out to me in that moment. Maybe he saw something in my bowling or the pitch or the match situation.
Whatever the reason, I took him up on his offer. I’m bloody glad I did.
Over the next 30 minutes, standing in a little corridor above our Birmingham change room, I got an awesome insight into what made him the greatest bowler the game has ever seen. We talked about taking control of day five, belief, the kind of competitiveness that affirms you can win a game from any situation.
I walked away from the chat full of confidence and keen to take the game on. We won the match, I bagged a few wickets and we were on our way to retaining the urn.
That conversation will remain with me forever.
Warnie’s passing rattled the whole team over here in Pakistan.
Dave Warner broke the news on the team bus after the first day of play in Rawalpindi and a group of us gathered for dinner back at the hotel to talk about it and support each other.
Everyone mourns differently. Some like to talk a lot, some like to keep their feelings to themselves and that was pretty much how it played out.
I told a few stories about my interactions with Warnie over the years. Scott Boland told a great yarn about winning a competition as a kid for a net session with Shane, which he accepted even though he wasn’t a spin bowler.
There were a few laughs remembering the good times and the King’s incredible legacy, but mainly there was just shock and sadness.
The first people I spoke to about Warnie from outside of the team were my partner Em and my brother Brendan. They both said the same thing: to put in a performance as a team that would make Shane and Rod Marsh proud, because they would want us to keep competing and playing good, hard cricket.
The Rawalpindi pitch wasn’t all that helpful, but the boys never stopped trying for them. Brendan and I have always idolised Warnie. Our backyard in Young wasn’t even and Brendan bowled leggies like Shane to turn with the slope. Me, standing at the other end, bowled offies to do the same back to him. Warnie was the first cricketer Brendan and I had on our bedroom walls and he had us glued to the TV. We loved watching the Aussies bat but we loved watching Shane bowl more. We were always asking dad, “Is Warnie going to do it today? Will Warnie win it for us today?” And dad would always say, “Of course he will!” We grew up in the generation where spin was cool again. Warnie made it cool. Before him, Australia was obsessed with fast bowling and every kid wanted to be Thommo or D.K.
Lillee. But in our childhood, we all wanted to bowl spin like Shane.
There are so many memorable balls, spells and matches.
Probably my favourite was his second innings against England at the Adelaide Oval in 2006.
Shane might have been the only person who truly believed Australia could win the match from the position they were in. The huge leg-break that bowled Kevin Pietersen is one of the best deliveries you’ll ever see.
I was working as a curator at Manuka Oval during that series but when the Test match is on, you would find me 99 per cent of the time in the groundsmen’s room watching on.
I met Shane for the first time a few years later at a spin weekend in Brisbane. I’d just moved to South Australia and I was one of the young spinners listening in as Warnie and Saqlain Mushtaq taught us about their craft.
I actually mentioned this to Saqlain the other day – he’s here in Pakistan for the series – and he said how old it made him feel.
Back then, I would have been over the moon if you’d told me that one day Shane would know my name.
I have been so much more fortunate than that. We have shared many conversations, sung the team song together in Cape Town in 2014, and I will never forget the video message he sent me for my 100th Test welcoming me to the club.
He was so generous with sharing his time and knowledge and spinners all over the world will say the same. I was talking to Mitch Swepson about this over here in Pakistan the last few days. He also grew up idolising Shane, too, and savours every lesson the King shared with him.
His is irreplaceable. There will never be another person like him.
I’ve got the nickname of the GOAT, which is a bit ridiculous. That’s Shane. He is the greatest. The way he instilled belief into that Australian cricket team and led the charge with the ball in hand was unlike anything the game has seen before, and probably ever will again.
I will never be able to achieve what Shane did and I am cool with that.
I have the best job in the world and it’s been the honour of a lifetime to spend the last decade chasing his tally of 708 Test wickets. He didn’t just inspire me and my generation, either.
There is a new wave of spin bowlers coming through who are too young to have watched him play, but still describe him as their inspiration on account of the old clips they’ve seen of him.
That is true greatness.