Writing a blog on Shane Warne three days after his last internationally recorded ball makes me feel mortified!! Such is his impact on Australian cricket if not world cricket. He has faced nearly everything in his tenure. From the first failure to the Perfect 700, everything he and cricket have exchanged are inconceivable. A career that starts with a 1-228 and ends with 708 scalps cannot be seen every century!! He entered the arena as a 22 year old blonde who made the critics think “He is another leg spinner who is going to be thrashed by batsmen across the globe” and gave them the initial hope that their predictions were to come true. But that was not what had been destined for Warney. He bounced back like a boomerang to take 72 wickets- his second best wickets tally in a calendar year next only to the record breaking 96 in 2005- making batsmen take notice of him. And the rest, as they say is not ‘History’ ..It has been ‘HisStory’.



Beyond statistics he has a lot to add to his resume. He gave a fourth dimension to Leg spin bowling which by the time he entered had come to near extinction state with Asian bowlers like Mushtaq Ahmed and Abdul Qadir remaining the last notable leggies of the Pre Warne era. Now each international team , each county or a club team and each local school team has a leg spinner. You may add my inclusion of Left arm bowlers (Vettori,Panesar and a few others) into leg spinners list as a Poetic ..sorry.. Bloggers’ justice. In short, he brought up the renaissance of Spin bowling which is now at its acme with three of the world s four leading wicket takers being spinners. His leg spinners, Flippers, Flight deceive the batsmen like a magician s wand. He also frequently delivers out the famous Australian ‘rippers’ that stun the commentators more than they stun the batsmen! He is one of the few who bowl googlees(No..i don’t mean the ones that kumble bowls..Those aren t googlies..They can be called Straight Shooters!) to precision. Sir Don Bradman had a duck in his last test match, but thankfully Warne- his bowling counterpart didn’t have to suffer such an irony even when he could get just one wicket. He overcame the satire by scoring a 71 showing his credentials as a better player too lower down the order. He has made many a fruitful contribution with the bat and has made the Australian lower order look a bit sturdy.

Apart from his bowling or should I call it sculpting ?! and his batting, his hands have been illustrious for two other reasons – One good and one bad.. The media has taken care of the bad reason..So I shall leave it.. the good thing being his bucket catches at the Slip cordon. He , teamed up with Mark Waugh and now Gilchrist, has sent many batsmen off the field for the slender and thick edges their bats hurl out with acrobatic dives that you wouldn t associate even in your wildest flight of the imagination with a person of his physique!! Obviously Mcgrath would be the bowler on most of those occasions. In all , this good ODI bowler has been the Numero Uno, The unconquered, The unconquerable (Muralitharan will statistically conquer warney s record though), the ultimate super champ of spin bowling..if not bowling..if not cricket!!Give ur comments..

Comments:

Warne (Leg spin guru) has left an impact on australian cricket. There are days when i got up at around 5 am to see his bowling. The world will miss the services of one of the greatest leg spinners of the modern era.

@ Siva. U have missed mentioning about the ball of the decade (the one that got mike gatting gasping )