By Martyn Herman
LONDON (Reuters) -With a single twist of his right wrist on an early summer day at Old Trafford in 1993 Shane Warne not only bamboozled England’s batsman Mike Gatting with the so-called “Ball of the Century” but also revived the noble art of leg spin.
The bleached blond-haired Warne arrived on that tour of England relatively unknown outside Australia and with fairly unspectacular figures from his first 11 test matches.
All that changed in an instant on the second morning of an Ashes series in which Warne took an incredible 34 wickets in Australia’s 4-1 drubbing of the hosts.
With England having made a solid start in reply to Australia’s first innings 289, captain Allan Border handed the ball to Warne.
After loosening up his arm and surveying where his fielders were positioned, Warne began his ambling run-up off no more than 10 paces at almost walking pace.
The beautifully-flighted delivery initially appeared to be heading straight but began to drift through the air towards the right-handed Gatting — a vastly experienced batsman known for his expertise against spin bowling.
The ball pitched a foot outside the line of Gatting’s leg stump and with the batsman thrusting his left pad forward with his bat angled down, it gripped in the dust.
It then spat and bounced back at a 45 degree angle, ripping past the edge of Gatting’s bat and hitting the top of off stump.
Richie Benaud, the great Australian commentator working for the BBC, seemed as bemused as Gatting as his initial reaction was as if he had witnessed just an everyday dismissal.
“He’s done it,” Benaud said after a brief silence, before adding: “He’s started off with the most beautiful delivery.
“Gatting has absolutely no idea of what’s happened to him.”
As a smiling Warne was congratulated by his team mates Gatting began the long walk off, looking back over his shoulder at his tormentor and shrugging his shoulders in resignation.
With a single, extraordinary, delivery Warne cast a spell over England and by the end of the innings he had also accounted for Robin Smith, Graham Gooch and Andy Caddick as the hosts capitulated to 210 all out.
Gooch later described Gatting’s reaction as “like someone had just stolen his lunch”.
Gatting scored 4,409 test runs and is one of England’s greatest batsmen but for many the most memorable moment of his career was when he unwittingly became part of cricket folklore.
The 64-year-old said he was “absolutely devastated” by Warne’s death from a suspected heart attack, aged 52, on Friday.
Asked once more to recall ‘that’ ball, Gatting told Sky Sports: “I didn’t expect it to spin that much, I’m not sure he did when we spoke about it.
“He just said he tried to get it down the other end as best as he could. Well, it was a bit too good for me as he was for many others who suffered the same fate.
“He always said thanks mate for starting off my career.”
Whenever asked about ‘The Ball’ Warne modestly insisted it was “a bit of a fluke”. But he was not fooling anyone.
It was merely the opening piece of magic from a cricketing wizard who went on to take 708 test wickets — a figure only bettered by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan — and made leg spin bowling cool again.
(Reporting by Martyn HermanEditing by Toby Davis)
