Sport's Defining Moments 5: Shane Warne
After the previous rambling, tangential, self-indulgent entry (of which, I assure you, there'll be many more), time for a relatively short and straightforward tale, which takes this overarching theme exactly to its halfway point.
I've found the 'Defining Moments in Sport' strand the hardest of the four to fulfil - I suppose, because worldwide sport is so compartmentalised, and because that part of me which thinks that I should always be objective wonders if I should include something from the 2008 Super Bowl or something to do with LeBron James, and whether something in some non-global sport like cricket deserves to be seen as a defining moment of all sport.
What are the truly global sports? They're relatively few. Football, Athletics and, in a sense, the Olympic events in general (though only intermittently). Basketball, actually, though we don't like to admit it in the UK. Tennis, Boxing and Cycling up to a point, even Golf up to a point - somehow, the concept of "global" ought to include significant interest and achievement from the USA and/or the Far East, also central Africa, in which case it really is Football, Athletics and (though in a limited way everywhere) Boxing that stand out.
But it would be boring to confine myself to those three. Cricket may be a high-level sport for a limited number of countries, but at least, due to the ambitions of Empire, those countries are all over the place. [The hoary old chestnut that the first international cricket match was between USA and Canada deserves a mention here, too, as is the less hoary - but still somewhat hoary if you hang with me- fact that the first thing I saw, the first time I ever touched down in the USA, from a taxi, in a school playground in Brooklyn, was a game of cricket].
I said this one would be relatively short, didn't I? Damn, I've turned 56 with a glass of whisky and not-so-captive-but-polite-audience and forgetful already.
So, what's the most significant cricketing moment of the last 30 years? Most trying to hold on to the positives and the glories of the game would do their best to put aside the significant corruptions and bastardisations of cricket, also the boardroom deals whose pernicious significance has only been felt later, and point to this - The Ball of the Century.
It was a Friday afternoon in early June (wrote a terrible poet) ... no, it was. My memory had it down as near the end of the day, but actually my research tells me it was just before tea. The second day of the first test of the 1993 Ashes. I do remember watching it, I'm slightly puzzled as to how as I should have been at school, I'd have thought. But I do remember it, in the moment, Warne rolling up for his first Ashes delivery. Because we didn't have all those channels back then, it was the first time I'd ever seen him bowl. He'd played a handful of tests and there was significant hype, but as he rolled up to the crease, I already knew there was nothing to fear. This guy? This run-up? Looks hopeless. And, right enough, he sent his first ball looping way down the leg side ... I genuinely remember all those thoughts...
And then what? This. Terrible quality, sorry. It's Gatting's sheer bafflement that adds to the legend. "What the hell was that? That's not cricket as I know it."
It's one of those rare sporting moments that has had a song written about it. Jiggery Pokery - The Duckworth Lewis Method
Gatting had been brought in to the side especially for his ability against spinners, though let us take a moment to consider the ethical and selectorial order of early 90s England cricket, where it was decided that Mike Gatting, aged 36, test batting average 35.5, having already deserted England cricket to take the apartheid dollar, captaining an England rebel side in South Africa, was the saviour of English cricket, instead of David Gower, aged 36, test batting average 44.25, twice having turned down those reprehensible rebel tours, but hounded out of English cricket by buffoons before his prime had passed. Oh yes, Gatt's the one. I'm glad it is his humiliation, this symbol of English failure and Australian dominance.
This ball didn't, as such, change the momentum of the sport. Australia already had their boot on England's throat, had done since 1989, and their overtaking West Indies as the dominant force in world cricket was a gradual thing.
But this was the coming of Warne, and Warne, above Waugh, above McGrath, above Gilchrist and Ponting, is the ultimate symbol of that decade and a half of Aussie magnificence, statistically the best team in the history of tests, and leading lights in what may prove to be the last golden age of the most meaningful form of the greatest game.
We may not have liked it, but they played cricket magnificently, thrillingly, dominant but never dull. Warne never had a dull moment in his career. His stats aren't (quite) the equal of Muralitharan, but most cricketing aficionados cling more closely to him as the greatest of all spinners, and for once, I'll override my instinct to go with the stats. and agree.
I spent my cricketing life trying to spin the ball, to send the ball down on roughly the same trajectory as this ball of Warne's, albeit with the fingers of my left hand rather than the wrist of my right. What this ball does here is inconceivable, a camera trick. I can't think of a single thing so bizarre, artistic, unwordly in any other sport, the speed, the angle, and, of course, the sense of occasion.
Other things may have changed cricket more in the last 30 years, whether it was a dodgy meeting with Hansie Cronje, the development of Hawkeye or the first Twenty20, but this is the sport's most glorious, unforgettable moment (though, if you're English, Warne dropping Pietersen on the last day of the 2005 Ashes runs it close!).
I've found the 'Defining Moments in Sport' strand the hardest of the four to fulfil - I suppose, because worldwide sport is so compartmentalised, and because that part of me which thinks that I should always be objective wonders if I should include something from the 2008 Super Bowl or something to do with LeBron James, and whether something in some non-global sport like cricket deserves to be seen as a defining moment of all sport.
What are the truly global sports? They're relatively few. Football, Athletics and, in a sense, the Olympic events in general (though only intermittently). Basketball, actually, though we don't like to admit it in the UK. Tennis, Boxing and Cycling up to a point, even Golf up to a point - somehow, the concept of "global" ought to include significant interest and achievement from the USA and/or the Far East, also central Africa, in which case it really is Football, Athletics and (though in a limited way everywhere) Boxing that stand out.
But it would be boring to confine myself to those three. Cricket may be a high-level sport for a limited number of countries, but at least, due to the ambitions of Empire, those countries are all over the place. [The hoary old chestnut that the first international cricket match was between USA and Canada deserves a mention here, too, as is the less hoary - but still somewhat hoary if you hang with me- fact that the first thing I saw, the first time I ever touched down in the USA, from a taxi, in a school playground in Brooklyn, was a game of cricket].
I said this one would be relatively short, didn't I? Damn, I've turned 56 with a glass of whisky and not-so-captive-but-polite-audience and forgetful already.
So, what's the most significant cricketing moment of the last 30 years? Most trying to hold on to the positives and the glories of the game would do their best to put aside the significant corruptions and bastardisations of cricket, also the boardroom deals whose pernicious significance has only been felt later, and point to this - The Ball of the Century.
It was a Friday afternoon in early June (wrote a terrible poet) ... no, it was. My memory had it down as near the end of the day, but actually my research tells me it was just before tea. The second day of the first test of the 1993 Ashes. I do remember watching it, I'm slightly puzzled as to how as I should have been at school, I'd have thought. But I do remember it, in the moment, Warne rolling up for his first Ashes delivery. Because we didn't have all those channels back then, it was the first time I'd ever seen him bowl. He'd played a handful of tests and there was significant hype, but as he rolled up to the crease, I already knew there was nothing to fear. This guy? This run-up? Looks hopeless. And, right enough, he sent his first ball looping way down the leg side ... I genuinely remember all those thoughts...
And then what? This. Terrible quality, sorry. It's Gatting's sheer bafflement that adds to the legend. "What the hell was that? That's not cricket as I know it."
It's one of those rare sporting moments that has had a song written about it. Jiggery Pokery - The Duckworth Lewis Method
Gatting had been brought in to the side especially for his ability against spinners, though let us take a moment to consider the ethical and selectorial order of early 90s England cricket, where it was decided that Mike Gatting, aged 36, test batting average 35.5, having already deserted England cricket to take the apartheid dollar, captaining an England rebel side in South Africa, was the saviour of English cricket, instead of David Gower, aged 36, test batting average 44.25, twice having turned down those reprehensible rebel tours, but hounded out of English cricket by buffoons before his prime had passed. Oh yes, Gatt's the one. I'm glad it is his humiliation, this symbol of English failure and Australian dominance.
This ball didn't, as such, change the momentum of the sport. Australia already had their boot on England's throat, had done since 1989, and their overtaking West Indies as the dominant force in world cricket was a gradual thing.
But this was the coming of Warne, and Warne, above Waugh, above McGrath, above Gilchrist and Ponting, is the ultimate symbol of that decade and a half of Aussie magnificence, statistically the best team in the history of tests, and leading lights in what may prove to be the last golden age of the most meaningful form of the greatest game.
We may not have liked it, but they played cricket magnificently, thrillingly, dominant but never dull. Warne never had a dull moment in his career. His stats aren't (quite) the equal of Muralitharan, but most cricketing aficionados cling more closely to him as the greatest of all spinners, and for once, I'll override my instinct to go with the stats. and agree.
I spent my cricketing life trying to spin the ball, to send the ball down on roughly the same trajectory as this ball of Warne's, albeit with the fingers of my left hand rather than the wrist of my right. What this ball does here is inconceivable, a camera trick. I can't think of a single thing so bizarre, artistic, unwordly in any other sport, the speed, the angle, and, of course, the sense of occasion.
Other things may have changed cricket more in the last 30 years, whether it was a dodgy meeting with Hansie Cronje, the development of Hawkeye or the first Twenty20, but this is the sport's most glorious, unforgettable moment (though, if you're English, Warne dropping Pietersen on the last day of the 2005 Ashes runs it close!).
Comments
Post a Comment