The strange case of Shane Warne
Shane Warne
By Anil - 2 Oct, '02
October 2 2002
There are some - mostly Australians and Warne's victims - who would proclaim Shane Warne as one of the best spinners in cricket. But tell that to the Indians, who have consistently produced the best spinners in the world, and they are mystified.
The Aussies, and Warne's main victims - the English, Kiwis, and South Africans - have numbers to back up their claim that he is a leading spinner. After all, he does have one of the largest hauls in Test cricket, and that must count for something. But if that were the case, why has he been so spectacularly unsuccessful on the pitches that have helped spinners the most?
Steve Waugh, in a comment yesterday, gave himself away. Enraged that Waqar Younis, Pakistan captain, would have the temerity to hope that pitches in Sri Lanka would be prepared to help spin, Waugh wanted "action" to be taken on Younis's words. While this was a typical Waugh hypocrisy, given the trend in most of the world to prepare tracks that help the home team, it brings up a far more important question: why would the captain of a team which contains the loudly-proclaimed best spinner in the world, object so strongly to the preparation of wickets that assist spin? And why would he fear that spinners like Saqlain Mushtaq, who has been struggling greatly in recent times, or Dinesh Kaneria, a young rookie in the Pakistan team, could exploit those pitches better than his champion spinner?
If you ask the notoriously biased Aussie media, who often appear to consider themselves part of the Australian team rather than unbiased sports reporters, they will have no shortage of reasons, however strange they may sound. It would not be atypical of them to claim that Warne bowls a special variety of zooter that requires exactly the kind of pitches that Australia and England prepare. They would also make denigrating comments about the supposed "dusty tracks" of the subcontinent, as if to say that such tracks are meant only for inferior bowlers and not their great spinner. Add to that their regular attacks on Murali, accepted by those who matter as perhaps the best spinner in the history of cricket, and potentially the most successful of all bowlers, and it becomes difficult to understand the reasoning. Vettori, a promising spinner in the New Zealand team, even said recently that he considered Harbhajan and not Murali the best off-spinner in the world, but that he believed Warne to be the best spinner in cricket.
But the facts point to Warne's wickets coming from factors entirely unrelated to his actual ability to bowl good spin. Consider the following:
- The victims: Unsurprisingly, the majority of Shane Warne's wicket haul comprises batsmen from England, New Zealand, and South Africa. These batsmen have traditionally been suspect against any kind of spin.
- Indian batsmen: have traditionally destroyed Warne's bowling. Sachin Tendulkar has always been unkind to Warne whether in India or Australia, and other top Indian batsmen such as Laxman and Dravid have made a mockery of Warne's bowling.
- Mental disintegration: The Aussies have always been champions at the art of mental disintegration. Roughly translated, this is the art of dishing out terrible, disturbing abuse at batsmen, but in a sneaky way designed to avoid TV cameras and at a discreet distance from umpires. English batsmen are particularly vulnerable to this; in fact their best batsman Graham Thorpe has just turned down the opportunity to visit Australia for the Ashes series coming up, specifically to avoid mental disintegration from Aussies cricketers relative to the breakup of his marriage and the custody battle for his children - because that would have left him a shattered man, quite apart from the fact that it would not allow him to give his best on the field. Similarly, the South African team who have earned a well-deserved reputation as "chokers" have not been able to withstand those tactics, World Cup 99 being a perfect example. New Zealand has only recently been able to withstand these pressure tactics under the leadership of Fleming, and have reaped substantial reward from that toughness, recently holding off the Aussies in Australia and very nearly taking the series. West Indies have also been susceptible to disintegration tactics from the likes of Warne and McGrath after the exit of tough men Lloyd and Richards. Warne's kitty is filled with wickets from all of these teams, but not from Indian batsmen who have always considered his variety of spin quite mild and harmless regardless of the abuse being dished out on the field.
- Biased umpires: Aussie home umpires have earned the tag of "most biased umpires in the world". Many believe that Warne has benefited from the outrageous largesse of those umpires and earned many an LBW from balls pitched outside leg stump. He has also been been allowed to get away with negative bowling tactics, often pitching consistently outside leg.
So what can we conclude from the above? Waugh's angry reaction at spin-friendly conditions for their upcoming series against Pakistan, as well as Australia's abject failures in India and Sri Lanka, make it all too clear that Warne is lacking as a spinner. Statistics don't tell the whole story; Australia's numerous 5-Test clashes with England, and the success of their intimidatory tactics on the English team, have made it far too easy for Warne to increase his tally substantially.
But now Warne has yet another opportunity to prove himself in the subcontinent. He looked very unimpressive in the just-concluded Champions Trophy; if he now cannot succeed in Tests against a highly inexperienced Pakistan team then he will have only himself to blame for half the cricketing world laughing off his exaggerated claims as a world class spinner.