You made it further than me. Twenty years before Warne - ten or more before Mushtaq - I had nobody more celebrated than Jack Alabaster to look to as I tried to be a leg spinner in 70s Auckland. I made it to senior grade cricket, but gave it away after an entire 40-over innings at square leg watching the captain's favourite medium-pacers get flogged for 250 for 1 and never getting closer to the bowling crease than the between-overs change. The explanation? Spin would have been too big a risk. Aside from a few nostalgic old blokes on the club selection panel, nobody at all wanted to know then. Rock and roll started to seem a lot more attractive than spending my Saturdays as a specialist outfielder.
Personally, I would like to remember Shane Warne as he appears in your final GIF – scanning the field, fizzing the ball from hand to hand and endlessly scheming.
Ah Jarrod, what a day. I was thinking when you wrote how people wanted you to be more Warne, I think they wanted the same from him. What that meant exactly was tricky for him. Beyond the bowling was it the jelly scalp? Liz hurley? Losing his stack every year on day one of World Series of Poker? None of the above, I fear. I’ll remember him in white, and in canary yellow, from behind, rolling his arm over, the magician he was. Thanks for taking me back at a very sad time. When the smoke clears: it’s time for you to write your Dead XI. Ashes edition.
Hugs and tears
Nicely put together Jarrod. Great memories of family cricket times together and at Campbellfield. Your seaming uncle Ross. Cheers
You made it further than me. Twenty years before Warne - ten or more before Mushtaq - I had nobody more celebrated than Jack Alabaster to look to as I tried to be a leg spinner in 70s Auckland. I made it to senior grade cricket, but gave it away after an entire 40-over innings at square leg watching the captain's favourite medium-pacers get flogged for 250 for 1 and never getting closer to the bowling crease than the between-overs change. The explanation? Spin would have been too big a risk. Aside from a few nostalgic old blokes on the club selection panel, nobody at all wanted to know then. Rock and roll started to seem a lot more attractive than spending my Saturdays as a specialist outfielder.
Personally, I would like to remember Shane Warne as he appears in your final GIF – scanning the field, fizzing the ball from hand to hand and endlessly scheming.
Ah Jarrod, what a day. I was thinking when you wrote how people wanted you to be more Warne, I think they wanted the same from him. What that meant exactly was tricky for him. Beyond the bowling was it the jelly scalp? Liz hurley? Losing his stack every year on day one of World Series of Poker? None of the above, I fear. I’ll remember him in white, and in canary yellow, from behind, rolling his arm over, the magician he was. Thanks for taking me back at a very sad time. When the smoke clears: it’s time for you to write your Dead XI. Ashes edition.
Oh yeah. And smoking fags on the Basin Reserve balcony. Champion.