/ 18 April 2002

Warne delivers a bouncer

The chubby young legspinner, whom the Australians threw into international cricket in only his second first-class season, was part of an Aussie master plan to become kings of world cricket and, more particularly, to beat the then awesome West Indies. This is one of the nuggets of information revealed by Shane Warne in his book.

He is blunt about how ready he was for the international stage. He was not. He recalls being given a tip-off about his imminent selection by a selector “with my hands full of pie and beer”.

Warne was lucky to have a mentor in the straight-talking Terry Jenner who tore a strip off Warne for thinking he could continue to party as before. They formed a remarkable partnership that continues to this day.

This is a pies-and-beer rather than a cabernet-and-camembert book.

Warne comes across as a thoroughly good bloke, proud of his talent, determined to keep things simple and have fun. So the book’s straightforward prose suits the subject but the cliché count is still depressingly high and stylistic flourishes (a Scottish batsman batting “as though he was Mel Gibson from Braveheart“) are few and far between. There is a particularly colourful description of a world-class hangover that is difficult to forget.

Sixteen references in the index to various injuries suffered by Warne during his career are a reminder that he has shown plenty of bravery in the decade since he started bamboozling Test batsmen.

Warne tries to set the record straight on the numerous controversies that have dogged him over the years and this reader was convinced that he was more sinned against than sinning.

There are revealing insights into the Australian team ethic, the art and craft of leg-spin and some wonderfully self-deprecatory passages on his battles with Indian master batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

As it happens, the series in which world dominance shifted from the West Indies to Australia in 1994/95 was decided by the pace bowlers but the Australian planners got it right when they gambled on Warne.