October 26, 2008	Sunday	Shawwal 26, 1429

INDIA’S emphatic victory by a record margin in the second Test recently was not only humiliating, to say the least, for the touring Australians but it also made their captain Ricky Ponting publicly lament the loss of their match winners Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne through retirement.

One a great exponent of nagging accuracy as a medium-fast bowler and the other, the most successful wrist spinner there ever was. The two undoubtedly carried the invincible Aussies virtually on their shoulders, hogging the limelight not only for themselves but for their country for over a decade. Their iconic stature, even in retirement, remains as much intact.

Early this month I caught up with the burly Warne at the Australian High Commission in London when an invitation turned up to join him at the launch of his latest book Shane Warne’s Century, a compilation of his essays on his hundred favourite players who played with and against him.

The book had come to me for review through the publishers a few days earlier before the launch, one of many that I receive from all over the globe.

As I started to turn out the pages to look at his choice of players, I was a bit apprehensive about its contents having followed his exploits over the years inside the arena and outside it.

But it turned out to be a compulsory reading as far I was concerned. Nothing like 100 Greatest Batsmen which featured Zaheer Abbas, Majid Khan, Asif Iqbal, Javed Miandad, Hanif Mohammad, Mushtaq Mohammad and written by the doyen of the commentators John Arlott or The Greatest of My Time by the England all-rounder of the fifties, Trevor Bailey.

What surprised me most while reading Warne’s thoughts about his mates and his opponents was his clarity of mind and an unabashed insight into skills of the players he played with and against.

In my experience of meeting the greats of the game in the last forty years, I thought only Sir Don Bradman, Richie Benaud and our own Hanif Mohammad had that kind of deep knowledge of the intricacies of this wonderful game. But now Warne, for me, joins that league and a lot of others who may go through his masterly observations will agree with me.

In his list there are big and small, but while talking to him I did take him on to explain why he did not have Abdul Qadir whose house he visited in Lahore in mid-nineties to learn the googly and how come he ignored from his list a great player of spin like Salim Malik. A poignant question considering his allegation over Malik during the match-fixing controversy.

“Qadir was a great spin bowler and I always admired the man as a person and as host. When I visited his house it turned out that he is a great host too. We ended up bowling with apple and oranges on his sitting room carpet so that I could learn the art of bowling the googly. I, however, did not play against him, the reason why he is not in my list,” Warne disclosed.

“Malik, well. There is no doubt that he was a great player of spin. He made a double hundred when I first played against him. And then another century off me, later I got him for a duck. There is no other reason for not having him in my list but the fact of the matter is that I did not play much against him.”

While Warne had this simple explanation to offer for Malik’s omission, one certainly could read between the lines.

There are other famous names of the modern times in his list but what really pleased me most is his choice of the Pakistanis such as Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, Mushtaq Ahmed, Saeed Anwar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Moin Khan and Shahid Afridi.

His comments on them make a very interesting reading as he pays glowing tributes to their temperament and skill.

“When I look back over my career, I can see that I was fortunate for so many reasons, one of them might not be obvious when Wasim bowled the fastest spell I ever saw. I was part of the Australian dressing room as Wasim came on after tea in the Pindi Test of 1994 and gave Steve Waugh the real going over. He looked awesome. He is the best left-arm bowler I ever faced or witnessed. There was nothing he couldn’t do except bowl right-handed. There was no wasted energy. His bouncer could be deadly and so well directed.