No man is an island and no team is either. The team you support is only part of the equation. Opponents elevate a match. Opponents like Shane Warne. Many words have been spoken and written about Shane Warne in recent weeks; about why he was such an incredible leg-spinner; about
Continue reading
You’ve no doubt seen the shocking news that Shane Warne’s died. This is by no means the first gasp he’s induced from us, but it’s by far the least welcome. We will, of course, write something longer in due course, but for now we just want to acknowledge what a
Continue reading
Can we talk about bowlers’ run-ups? We’ve picked out three great ones. They’re not necessarily our favourites, but we feel like each one says something in particular about how bowlers get to the crease and what we as viewers feel as they’re doing so. But before that, please can we
Continue reading
Shane Warne said he always used to try and really rip a leg break when he first came on to bowl. This wasn’t to try and dismiss the batsman – although sometimes it did – it was really just to sow a seed of doubt. Warne wanted to maximise the
Continue reading
The frustrating thing about reality TV programmes is that when someone says something interesting, there’s no-one there to ask the obvious follow-up questions. When he appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2016, Shane Warne expressed his belief that humans, “couldn’t do” the pyramids. “You couldn’t
Continue reading
Specialist bowlers having to bat is one of the greatest things in the world because batting is absolutely nothing like bowling. It is like a javelin thrower training for years and years to perfect their art only to turn up at the Olympics and be told that they also have
Continue readingThe very great thing about Shane Warne having a book out (ghosted by Mark Nicholas, of all people) is that he appears here, there and everywhere and talks his nonsense and we all get to marvel at how swiftly the man can form opinions and stick to them. Warne thinks
Continue readingShane Warne’s got another book out – No Spin. In it, he’s taken the time to dig over old grievances with Steve Waugh. The story is this. Steve Waugh wanted to drop Shane Warne once because he was coming back from major shoulder surgery and he wasn’t bowling very well.
Continue readingWe’ve written about ‘aggressive cricket’ about a billion times, but that’s largely because – like a snipped clothing label that hasn’t quite been fully removed – it continues to irritate us. Different people mean different things by ‘aggression’ and also confuse cricketing aggression with actual aggression. The latest to say
Continue readingShane Warne left an important part of his brain somewhere on a cricket field in Hampshire. It’s the part that stops you doing things that your 11-year-old self would have thought a good idea. Here he is describing a painting he had commissioned. Here’s the painting itself. We’d love to
Continue reading