Legends of Cricket: Bettor.com’s World XI – Shane Warne
"I’ve lived a life that’s full –
I’ve travelled each and every highway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way."
These words resonate the world that Shane Warne had created for himself on the cricketing arena. He had an aura of a school boy, a rock star on the cricketing field. If cricket was matter, Shane Warne was the anti-matter. He was a spoilt brat off the field,
he was cocky on it. He had his own way as well, with cricket and women, with drugs and earrings. There were always the oldies. There were always those who disliked his ways, his antics. But he had his own share of admirers. In the year 2000, he was chosen
as one of the five greatest cricketers of the 20th century.
If cricket were a modelling ramp, and cricketers’ models, then Warne was cricket’s Paris Hilton. He was more famous, than he was loved. However, at the same time, he was an awfully brilliant leg spinner as well. When Warney likened his life to a soap opera,
it was more an understatement. For his life was one wild roller coaster ride. But in all happy families, there is always that one person who keeps catching attention for the wrong reasons most of the time. When all those conscientious eyes were pointed in
his direction disapprovingly, he somehow managed to do something so spectacular and majestic that his critics found a hint of a wry smile on their wrinkly faces.
They knew that despite the antics, the person was a wonder. He had taken a Test hat-trick, won himself a man of the match in a World Cup final and found himself the subject of interest for seven authors. How he managed to do that is simple very simple indeed.
He marinated a cricket ball with some magic spell, to bamboozle a ball through his hand to produce a wrong’un, a zooter, a toppie or a slider. There was always the flipper that bounced like a rabbit on the field, and when the batsman was too caught up in trying
to catch a bouncy rabbit, he bowled a straighter’un that would catch the batsman unaware in front of the stumps.
He could bowl a delivery that would pitch a few inches wide of the leg stump to knock the bails of the off stump. He gazoodled, zadoozled and mumboozled the ball, his story was half pantomime half fairy tale, with a pinch of hospital drama, a dressing of
an adult only romp and a vague memory of an awards ceremony. He was the first person in cricketer to reach 700 test wickets. He scored more runs with the bat that any other player in the history of the game without scoring a century.
Most importantly, the very thing that sets him apart from many others was that this man, this school boy, can be credited for reviving the dying art of leg spin. For revitalizing and reinventing it. For bringing some much needed excitement into the role
of the traditional spin bowler. He could have easily been a wily captain that Australia never had, but more importantly, Warne was a source of pride and vain cockiness for his team and that saw themselves dominating over all others for many years.
The boring commentator, writer, critic would always write off the cockiness as pretentious and unbecoming of a cricketer, but it was fun to watch and it made the game even more competitive.
He could sweep aside 26 Sri Lankan batsmen with languid ease in three tests, and claim 96 victims in a year with the bouncy rabbits, he produced. He was like the Posh Spice or the Kylie Minogue that cricket never had. Nobody fully appreciated the extent
of his genius, however with his departure, reclaiming the urn of the Ashes in 2006-07 for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, Warne left cricket starved off some much needed entertainment and wizardry.
Warne therefore finds himself in Bettor.com’s all time World XI.
“For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.
Yes, it was my way.”
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