Continuing the Warne autobiography, this is about Shane Warne and Terry Jenner. On a mid-afternoon, Warne knocked on the doors of Terry Jenner and told him that he has developed a liking for the sport and that he want to learn. However, Terry was quite categorical. He told Warne directly that he was fat and lucky and that the only reason he was picked for the team was because there wasn’t anyone available. If Warne wants to work with Terry, he must throw away the beer bottles that he had bought to meet Terry and stay away from unprescribed food. Terry was strong and ruthless with Warne. On the first day, they discussed everything about cricket until the wee hours.
Terry told Warne that he had all the toys of a spinner. Legspinner, topspinner, flipper, googly but did not know how to use them. Terry made Warne understand the what, when and why. What you are bowling? When you are bowling it? Why are you bowling it? You do not bowl and googly or a flipper because you haven’t bowled one in 10 balls. He needs to think the batsman out.
Now, Warne was intrigued. He asked a lot more questions. Let us start with What. Terry said, are you bowling wide of the crease or tight to the stumps? How are you setting the batsman? How does he grip that bat? Where is he most likely to attack you? Warne admitted that he did not know the answers to any of those questions. During his stint with Terry, he taught him how to bowl close to the stumps and wide of the crease, how to bowl wide outside off and how to bowl to the stump. How and when to bowl the googly. Terry insisted on having a plan for every batsman. The stint with Terry Jenner rubbed Warne on the right side and he started to get much fitter. He lost weight and gave up on alcohol.
His turnaround series
Later, Warne was picked for the Sri Lankan tour in 1992. Warne was excited to be in Sri Lanka and bowled a lot of deliveries in the nets. He practiced extremely hard. Picked in the first Test, he returned figures of 0/107 bowling rubbish as he admit, in the first innings. Border came to his aid and told him that he bowled bloody well and asked him to keep believing. Fortune smiled at Warne during the 2nd innings. When the target was down to 34, Border called on Warne to bowl. Wickremasinghe was accounted for followed by Anurasiri. 16 required with the last wicket in. Madurasinghe just swung and held out. Australia won and Warne ended up with 3/11.
Australia won the series and went back to face West Indies. They lost the first Test at Brisbane where Warne was dropped but he was picked for the next game. He played a match winning hand of 7/52. The entire Australian squad were so happy that Greg Matthews ran upto bring Warne’s dad to drink with the team. Ultimately, they lost the series but Warne had arrived. He felt thankful to some players who influenced him. Terry, Ian Chappell, whom he believes is among the 3 greatest captains the game has seen and Rod Marsh.
In the eyes of everybody
The game that catapulted Warne into the rock star that he was to become. Now, his every move and every word was being watched and followed. Wherever he went, people thronged to just get a glimpse of him or better, his autograph. He felt suffocated and the pressure constantly mounted. Onto the series. Warne boarded the flight to England with Merv Hughes sitting beside him. Australia played a warmup game just before the first Test against Worcestershire. Graeme Hick was playing for that county when Border came up to Warne and asked him to bowl only leg-spinners and nothing else.
He wanted Warne to shelve every other delivery to keep the element of surprise because England had not seen Warne yet. Sure enough, Hick blasted him throughout the ground. Come the first Test, Australia was bowled out for 289 and England got off to a good start when Hughes got rid of Atherton. Now, in came Gatting when Border threw the ball to Warne who was pretty nervous.
The delivery that catapulted Warne to superstardom
First Ashes. Old Trafford, 1993. Gatting was on strike and Gooch at the other end, kept staring at Warne to offset him but Warne concentrated hard enough. Warne was at the top of the delivery stride and he came bumbling along. He looped the ball and felt perfectly fine, the ball dipped and spun.
Spun a long way, Gatting played down the line of the leg-stump, the ball went past his bat and hit the top of off-stump. Everyone watching was stunned. The Australians were thrilled. After the end of the day’s play, BBC replayed that delivery from every possible angle. It was an unbelievable delivery. Warne reckons that he never bowled a similar delivery but perhaps the one to Andrew Strauss 10 years later was even better because by then, every player knew what Warne was capable of.
The fact that Strauss was a left-hander, probably did not command the same awe
Warne mesmerised England so much that England was unable to play him either of the front foot or on the backfoot. The Gatting ball must have played on their minds throughout. England never recovered to bat well against Warne until the end of his career. During the middle of the series, Hick and Gatting were dropped. Gooch lost his captaincy. Warne also writes that Bobby Simpson played a significant role in his development. As success came, Warne felt much more satisfied and confirmed his place in the squad which helped in improving his fitness. Simpson made him bowl, bat and field a lot more than he was used to until that point. Simpson impressed upon him to need to bowl around the wickets so that it would give him one more angle to target the batsmen. He credits Simpson for improving the slip-catching of the Australians.
Autobiography