Except, in the case of Shane Keith Warne, there is no true successor or successor, so the second part of that declaration is redundant.
No cricketer has used the magic of leg-spin bowling, understood where cricket plays in life and enjoyed every day so much that it was given in the form of Warne.
At the age of 52, Warne moved to Thailand long before he feared a heart attack, but there is no corner of the cricketing world that does not realize his demise.
To see Warne was to be sucked into the magical wonderland. Standing still on top of his mark, shaping the batsman and replaying the plan in his mind, Warne began his run up with a move that didn’t seem out of place at a park or beach. Would. As he picked up the pace and approached the crease, every bowling muscle in his body was in alignment and when the ball got out of his hand, he did everything he could to rip it.
But the physical beauty of Warne’s bowling was a part of his brilliance. He went into the batsmen’s heads, sometimes with a sharp word, sometimes with a stare, sometimes with exaggerated ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ when the ball hit the bat.
With Warne, the batsman not only got out but usually lost. A keen poker player, it was no surprise that his bowling followed a six-card trick, one for each ball of the over. The magic ball would go to the batsmen, but the set up was just as important as the theater to watch.
Like all bowlers, the ball occasionally did not do its bidding, but it was neither due to lack of effort nor thoughtlessness. When Warne was bowling, every single ball was an event and every action had a purpose.
Warne will be best remembered for what became known as the ball of the century when he bowled Mike Gatting as a novice, but many other batsmen were similarly left red-faced. Gatting’s face looked as though he had seen a ghost, or perhaps the impossible.
That’s because Warne often didn’t just pick up a wicket, he tormented the batsman and made a fool of him while he was at it.
What made Warne so lovable, obviously different, was that he was also a deeply flawed character. He was so gullible that he used to give information to illegal bookies in exchange for money. He was banned from sport for taking a banned substance, a diuretic, which he said was given to him by his mother. And yes, there were women.
All this helped in humanizing Warne to cricket watchers. The average cricket fan can’t possibly relate to Warne’s craft, so he was impossibly good at one of cricket’s toughest disciplines. But everyone knew what it was like to make a mistake, or an error of judgment, and pay the price.
When Warne arrived on the scene, all tubby and raw, beer ready and not fuzzy away, it was not clear at first how good he was. On debut, he would take only one Test wicket of Ravi Shastri, and it came after the batsman scored 206 runs.
By the end of Warne’s career, there was a different man bowling leggies, literally and figuratively. Here was an aging gentleman, who was keen on his fitness and how he looked, a slimline version if you wish, but there was no doubt about his contribution to the sport.
In his career of 145 Tests, which saw 708 wickets, and World Cup victories with nearly 200 ODIs thrown in for fun, Warne’s biggest impact was that he brought spin bowling back to calm.
In cricket, batsmen are the poster boys, and fast bowlers are the most explosive, leaving spin with an unfair reputation of being geeky, even a soft discipline. But Warne proved that nothing is further from the truth.
Not many cricketers can claim that they have attracted more children to the sport and spin bowling as Warne did. For a time, kids around the world were copying that trademark run up and round-arm delivery style.
Naturally none of them grew up to become Warne. Because he was not a once in a generation player. He was one of a kind.
the king is Dead. There is nothing to add to it.
