Shane Warne's road to fame
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Born in Ferntree Gully, Victoria, in 1969, Shane Keith Warne was destined to spin the ball away from the batsman just like William Shakespeare was consecrated to write.
Making it to the Australian team at an age of 22, Shane Warne played his first Test match against the best spin playing nation in the world, India and did not do anything out of the ordinary which will suggest that there is a great bowler in the making.
When Warne decided to call it a day, he had already taken 708 wickets and 37 fifties to his name and still remains the only man to have scored more than 3000 runs without getting a century, his highest being 99. When the rest of the world was all over the place with the new mystery ball that had popped up back then, Warne used to take his wickets by bowling simple leg breaks, sometimes mixing it up with the odd flipper followed by the one which turns a bit more than his normal leg-break.
The ball that dismissed Mike Gatting is still considered as 'the ball of the century'. A ball which spun from way outside the leg-stump and caught Gatting napping round his legs. That was just the beginning of Warne spinning his web and one out of many wickets to follow against England.
Warne still remains the highest wicket-taker in Ashes by taking 195 wickets in 36 Test matches, head and shoulders ahead of anybody. The biggest strength of Warne was the way he used to make use of the wind and just when the batsmen felt that he has gone to the pitch of the ball, it will dip and turn deceiving him all ends up.
Spin bowling is an art and Shane Warne took it to a different height, one of the very few cricketers who would evoke as much interest on the field as off the field. A career mired with way too many controversies Warne always found it natural to wake up and make the ball dance to his tunes.
Blessed with a beautiful action, Shane Warne will always be remembered as the captain Australia never had. It was just a matter of time before the ICC inducted Shane Warne into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame, a place every cricketer dreams of getting into but only few make it.
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