Shane Warne: Cricket shall always be very proud of its prodigal son

Shane Warne's death comes a day after Australian cricket legend Rod Marsh.

“I have lived in the moment and ignored the consequences. This has served me both well and painfully, depending on which moment. I’ve tried to live up to the legend, or the myth in my view, which has been a mistake because I’ve let life off the field become as public as life on it. In my defense, I’ve never pretended to be someone or something I’m not.” Shane Warne in the introduction of his autobiography ‘No Spin’.

You couldn’t disagree with the summarisation of his own character in such a brutally honest way. Warne can be accused of many things but never a pretender. He was indeed an Australian original or rather a cricket original. When he retired from Test cricket in January 2007 during the Ashes series after nearly 15 years of domination, he still managed to get 23 wickets!  When he took a five-wicket haul on the first day of the Boxing Test at his home ground in Melbourne and completed his 700th wicket, everyone was asking who was writing his script! Now, we can perhaps say that God wasn’t writing Warnie’s script or else he would not have taken him away so early from this planet when he still had so much to offer to cricket.

“Cricket will undoubtedly be poorer without Shane Warne. It was so difficult to digest this shocking news. I didn’t interact much with him or played much against him but that hardly mattered. Because we all wanted to watch him bowl, poetry in motion and he was a true magician and master of lateral thinking.” said former India opener Aakash Chopra.

“The subtlety and nuance he mastered on the field were not reflected off the field, where he lived fast and furious, hard and obvious. He would say what he wanted to say to whoever, whenever he liked; do what he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it; and let the devil take the hindmost,” wrote Sydney Morning Herald on its front-page early Saturday in Australia. However, it’s not his off the field deeds, world is going to remember in years to come. What will remain in everyone’s memory that a genius was born to bowl leg-spin who revived a dying art in such a fashion that even in the shortest formats of the game, captains are often thinking about playing two leggies in a playing XI. Warne not only revolutionised his art but changed the perception of leg-spin. “Yes, I’ve been silly at times but, equally, I like to think I’ve done justice to my talent, openly shared it with the world and provided plenty of entertainment,” wrote Warne in his autobiography with a remarkable candor.

“The best thing about him was that he was an ultimate entertainer, a showman who perhaps cricket needed at that time. Warne was full of life and has influenced the game deeply. It is so difficult to believe that he is no more.” Said former India wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel. It is difficult to imagine that any cricketer who doesn’t have his own Warne story whoever has met him or played with or against with the legend. In fact, all the fans of the game too must have their countless Warnie moments which they could call their own, such was the joy provided by the maestro.

I distinctly remember a conversation with the Yusuf Pathan where he said, “ Warne nahi milta toh aisa confidence nahi aata. Kya banda hai yar, bolta hai toh lagta tha ki kuch bhi kar sakta hoon. (If I hadn’t met Warne, I wouldn’t have so confident about my own ability. What kind of a personality he is, whenever he used to do the pep-talk, I used to feel anything can be achieved). Not only Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja too owes a lot to the former Australian player for making him the “Rockstar” even before he could become the Sir Jadeja.

The obituary will be incomplete without a quote from Warne’s friend and former Hampshire captain Mark Nicholas who is the co-author of Warne’s auto-biography. Noting that Warne was as much famous for his wickets in the field, he also became infamous for many women in his life off the field, Nicholas beautifully put the importance of cricket in legend’s journey. “Women have been both his fun and folly. Cricket, of course has been his fulfilment. He is, in the truest sense, a great cricketer. He has touched the game in all its genres and formats, and in myriad ways.” He was an ultra-modern practitioner of leg-spin which was in the danger of being seen as an ancient craft before he came in to the picture. That’s remains Warne’s greatest accomplishment. Cricket shall always be very proud of its prodigal son.