Former British cricketer Michael Atherton thinks of the man who ‘wrote his name into Ashes folklore’ with a single ball.
He remembers the day in 1993 when Australian bowler Shane Warne announced his arrival on stage.
30 years ago on June 4 at Old Trafford, a young Australian stepped up to bowl his first ball in Ashes cricket, delivering a delivery that fell to the stumps of Mike Gatting despite falling to the pitch from leg-side distance.
Although the ball was not hailed as the ‘Ball of the Century’ for a long time, no fan in the stadium or watching on television had any doubt that something special had happened.
Atherton told The Independent: ‘I was out. I just got out. I was the first player out and got to play the gate and a ball was bowled just before the tea break on the second day.
‘I don’t remember much about Shane Warne. He played only a dozen Test matches.
“It’s easy to look back at that moment and think he was one of the ‘greatest’ bowlers to ever play the game.” But I think they averaged 30 at that stage. Graeme Hick gave him a bit of a tough time in Worcestershire.
‘It was several days before a lot of analysis and I don’t remember him seeing any video footage of it before he made that ball.
‘So there was an element of real surprise there, but what was the point of coming into Test cricket in that way?
‘The man who proved to be the greatest sniper in the world. He wrote his name in Ashes folklore. I don’t know how many wickets he took in Ashes cricket, 194 or something, but he was an incredible bowler.’
Such was the impact of the delivery that people watching the match on TV called their friends in shock. This effect was noticeable early on.
A fan places a ball in tribute next to Shane Warne’s statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on March 5, 2022 (AFP)
Atherton, who has never won an Ashes series, believed the Australian could be credited with the recent rise of leg spin and his mastery of it, which before Warne was described by some as a ‘dying art’. .
“I enjoyed the challenge,” said the former England captain. He was a great cricketer in terms of playing against him because if you did well, he would be very fair and say you played well.
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“If you did well against them, you would know you scored runs because they didn’t give you a bad ball. He was a very tough opponent so I enjoyed playing against him.
‘I found him to be a very straightforward competitor and he certainly…reinvented the art of leg spin which was not dying but not very popular either.
‘There weren’t many leg spinners. Maybe (Abdul) Qadir in Pakistan, but at that time there were no spinners in Test matches, but now there are many.
Warne himself downplayed the incident in trademark fashion, saying only that ‘all I tried to do was pitch on the leg-stump and spin properly.’
Jonathan Agnew, who was commentating on the delivery on the BBC’s Test Match Special and was in a position behind the batsman, said earlier that ‘the ball hit the wicket pad.’
Then after a moment he said, ‘They got bold! Good! We’ll have to wait for the replay. I can’t tell you what actually happened. ‘