RIP Warney
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@kirwan said in RIP Warney:
@donsteppa did it work?
Source: âOnly one bloke can stop them, bring out the kingâ: The night Warne tamed Bay 13
Alec Stewart canât remember if it was the game someone peppered the field with a seven iron from a corporate box, but there was no mistaking the golf balls rolling to within 30 metres of the MCG pitch.
âSomeone was using a golf club from one of the executive boxes,â Stewart told the Herald and The Age from London. âIt definitely happened I promise you. I canât remember if it was that match.â
The date was January 15, 1999 and it was one of those heaving nights at the MCG. Australia were playing England in a one-dayer and every stand was full to the brim. Batsmen were resorting to hand signals, such was the deafening noise.
With six overs left and Australia cruising to what would be a comfortable win, however, the natives got restless. Particularly in the infamous Bay 13.
âFifty-over games in Melbourne were very, very special. I donât know how many people were there that night,â Stewart, who was Englandâs captain, said.
âIt always created great atmosphere and yep, at times the beer could do the talking as the game goes on. But it was pretty much always good banter but that one, it went too far.
âThere was a few stubbies being thrown and then some golf balls, we thought this isnât good. It was dangerous for our man down on the boundaryâs edge.â
When Englandâs third man Mark Ealham was clipped on the leg by a VB bottle, the umpires pulled up play and talked with Stewart.
Stewart recalled the umpires discussing taking the players off the field to ensure their safety. Fans were ignoring the police.
âBut the last thing you want is a game suspended or abandoned because of crowd behaviour,â Stewart said.
âSo I thought if there is one bloke who can stop them - the police canât - bring out the king. He was the king of the MCG, and I wouldnât call it wisdom because I am involved, but I just thought âlets get Warnie out hereâ.â
With his wicketkeeperâs gloves on, Stewart faced the Australian dressing room and rolled the arm over, mimicking Warneâs leg-spin bowling action. Warne, who was captaining Australia that night, was âeating my Maccasâ when Stewartâs call was spotted.
âI walk out and thereâs an eruption of the crowd. They all start chanting my name. I can hardly hear Alec Stewart. He said, âMate, the gameâs going to stop unless you can get Bay 13 to calm downâ,â Warne told FoxSports in January.
âI said, âYou canât be serious, theyâre going to eat me alive down there and start hurling things at me.â He said, âWell, youâre the king of the MCG. Youâve got to go and do it.ââ
Warne was anxious because Australia had lost the Boxing Day Test a few weeks earlier, and courtesy of a 139-run partnership between Mark Waugh and Ricky Ponting, the Mexican waves were more interesting than the contest.
âI canât remember this happening before, at the MCG,â Nine commentator Bill Lawry said.
Warne grabbed Waughâs helmet and put it on, lightening the mood, and by the time he arrived at Bay 13, the whole stand was hailing Warne with their arms. His message of âdonât throw thingsâ was dutifully received and Warne trotted back to the dressing sheds. The missiles stopped and the game re-started.
It was a remarkable moment that showed Warneâs power of personality and influence. Called upon by the old enemy to help, Warne single-handedly tamed the masses. It wasnât parting a sea, but it wasnât far off.
He was the man of the people and everyone worshipped him really
Alec Stewart on Shane WarneBay 13 no longer exists but fittingly, the same MCG stand - the Great Southern Stand - that Warne becalmed will now be named after him.
âThat summed him up, that moment,â Stewart said.
âHe was the man of the people and everyone worshipped him really. It worked and there was nothing else thrown on. It went from not being ideal to normal. It was the Warnie worship really.
âIt is always when someone has gone that you realised what will be missed.â
Stewart, who is serving as Englandâs interim coach and learned of Warneâs passing at a training session at the Oval, said heâd always loved playing against the Australian spinner, despite being his most frequent Test victim.
Warne dismissed the former England captain 14 times in Tests; none more memorable than a wickedly unplayable flipper at the Gabba in 1994. Warne claimed career-best figures of 8-71 in the same innings.
âI probably saw more of him than I should have done,â Stewart laughed.
âI always use the term it was pure theatre, and he was the main man. He was the headline act. When you were stood in your batting crease there, you had to somehow try and take all that out of the equation and think âjust focus on the ball, focus on the ballâ. He created pure drama and theatre.
âWhen he retired, he didnât just leave a hole in Australian cricket. He left a hole in world cricket. We wonât see his like again.
âIt is very sad, especially with Rod (Marsh) going only a few hours earlier.
âJust unbelievable. Two greats. Theyâll be missed.â
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A lengthy but good CricInfo read: Facing Warne: the magic, the theatre, and the whole shebang
Dravid, Lara, Jayawardene, Younis, Tendulkar and Kirsten recall the time they had to pit their skills against the greatest legspinner of all timePart of Dravid's comments:
One of the things that always stood out playing against Warnie was that it felt like he was always setting you up for something, like a cat-and-mouse game was always on. Just when you felt, 'I am going to go inside out,' he would bowl the flipper. Or the moment you thought he's tied me down and maybe I need to play the sweep or use my feet, he would bowl just the ball that would make that particular shot risky. Like he almost knew what you were going do. It felt like a set-up.
And that was always the challenge. It didn't feel like someone was just wheeling away at one end, bowling good balls and dot balls and trying to create pressure and then get you out. It always felt like he had a plan. There was something going on in his head where it felt like he was out-thinking you. As much as you were in a contest of bat and ball, you were also in a mental duel with him...
.... you were in a contest with a guy who was trying to out-skill and out-think you. Warnie had that ability to get you out and not rely only on your mistakes. Both of us played a lot against each other and he got me out a few times and I might have had a little bit of success against him, but it never felt like you were in absolute control of that contest. I knew he had the skills, nous and tactics to get me out.
Warnie changed the whole theatre of Test cricket with his personality, his presence, his performance. He changed the way Test cricket was being watched from the 90s when it was all about watching fast bowlers at a time when a lot of attritional cricket was on display. Warnie just made legspin and spin bowling more attacking. Not that there were not great spinners before him, but Warnie's growth coincided with the expansion of the influence of television and technology in the game. That brought Warnie to the fore.
He changed the narrative around Test cricket: from being all about fast bowling to spin bowling. That spin bowling is match-winning. And there was no better example than Warnie: he became the man in a bowling attack with McGrath, Glillespie and Lee. I can't pay a greater compliment to Warnie.
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@donsteppa and the best part about that was often he didn't have some master plan to dismiss the exact batter on strike.
He'd have a mid-over conference with Healy and Taylor sometimes just to make the batsman nervous. They'd be quietly talking about the round of golf they planned the next day or some equally mundane shit. Then they'd point at a fielder and move them, and just get back to it.
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@donsteppa great share bro. Love how he could balance having fun and taking the piss with 100% laser focus on getting you out and wanting to win. I heard there will be over 100k people at the event today - RIP Warney.
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@paekakboyz said in RIP Warney:
@donsteppa great share bro. Love how he could balance having fun and taking the piss with 100% laser focus on getting you out and wanting to win. I heard there will be over 100k people at the event today - RIP Warney.
I read that as "over 100kg people there" and was a bit miffed I wasnt invited...
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@donsteppa said in RIP Warney:
A lengthy but good CricInfo read: Facing Warne: the magic, the theatre, and the whole shebang
Dravid, Lara, Jayawardene, Younis, Tendulkar and Kirsten recall the time they had to pit their skills against the greatest legspinner of all timePart of Dravid's comments:
One of the things that always stood out playing against Warnie was that it felt like he was always setting you up for something, like a cat-and-mouse game was always on. Just when you felt, 'I am going to go inside out,' he would bowl the flipper. Or the moment you thought he's tied me down and maybe I need to play the sweep or use my feet, he would bowl just the ball that would make that particular shot risky. Like he almost knew what you were going do. It felt like a set-up.
And that was always the challenge. It didn't feel like someone was just wheeling away at one end, bowling good balls and dot balls and trying to create pressure and then get you out. It always felt like he had a plan. There was something going on in his head where it felt like he was out-thinking you. As much as you were in a contest of bat and ball, you were also in a mental duel with him...
.... you were in a contest with a guy who was trying to out-skill and out-think you. Warnie had that ability to get you out and not rely only on your mistakes. Both of us played a lot against each other and he got me out a few times and I might have had a little bit of success against him, but it never felt like you were in absolute control of that contest. I knew he had the skills, nous and tactics to get me out.
Warnie changed the whole theatre of Test cricket with his personality, his presence, his performance. He changed the way Test cricket was being watched from the 90s when it was all about watching fast bowlers at a time when a lot of attritional cricket was on display. Warnie just made legspin and spin bowling more attacking. Not that there were not great spinners before him, but Warnie's growth coincided with the expansion of the influence of television and technology in the game. That brought Warnie to the fore.
He changed the narrative around Test cricket: from being all about fast bowling to spin bowling. That spin bowling is match-winning. And there was no better example than Warnie: he became the man in a bowling attack with McGrath, Glillespie and Lee. I can't pay a greater compliment to Warnie.
Dravid literally put me to sleep watching him bat at the MCG test years ago but he was an amazing player.
Always awesome reading about one legend talking up another. Part of the massive respect cricketers usually have for each other.
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Wow that Warney send off was something else. A legend of cricket and world sport, definitely a character that will be missed. RIP Warney.
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I bawled my fucking eyes out for 2.5 hours. Incredible send off, so emotional and such a deep recurring theme about Warneys' kindness to others, his vitality and his aura.
Amazing that Sir Elton John dedicated a song to Warne at a concert in the US where they wouldn't have had a clue who he was, complete with background images. Input from so many other global names. Some incredibly touching and humourous stories. Predictably non-PC but funny stuff from Sam Newman.
I was left wondering, genuinely, how he fitted in so much life. The way his kids spoke of him you'd think he had all the time in the world for them, yet he had so much on. The way his mates spoke of how caring he was. How many messages must he have sent? Did he never sleep? All the travel, all the charity work, all the golf, so much golf from the sounds of it! He really did pack a lot into 52 years.
RIP Shane Keith Warne
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@shark said in RIP Warney:
I was left wondering, genuinely, how he fitted in so much life. The way his kids spoke of him you'd think he had all the time in the world for them, yet he had so much on. The way his mates spoke of how caring he was. How many messages must he have sent? Did he never sleep? All the travel, all the charity work, all the golf, so much golf from the sounds of it! He really did pack a lot into 52 years.
Lifestyles of the rich and famous!
According to recent articles, Warnie was worth $50 million when he departed, which buys you a lot of time. You have a PA organizing your day and you're doing the sort of celebratory endorsement work where you get paid to do fun stuff.
Compared to us - he basically skimped on the 9 to 5 job!
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