Shane Warne doesn’t need to be obviously arrogant about anything. That underlying sense of superiority is just a part of him and he can’t be pronounced guilty on that as he has earned it well.
And, that’s why when he tells you about the art of leg spin and the reason behind decreasing number of its practitioners; he might but is indeed not trying to reaffirm his legend.
“Without trying to be arrogant about it, it’s (leg spin) hard. That’s why we are not seeing a lot of leg-spinners around the world. It’s difficult. It’s tough,” he says with a laugh and expression almost asking you to read between the lines as if he might as well have said, ‘I did it, not all can do that.’
But then he is equally adept at presenting his argument in such a way that you would give him all the credit for ‘having been there done that’.
“When I started bowling or when Anil Kumble, Mushtaq Ahmed and a lot of the other leg-spinners bowled in the world in the late 80s or early 90s, if we got smashed or hit for sixes, it was OK. They (the team captains) had patience. They understood the game,” adds the former Australian leg spinner, who had sent 708 batsmen packing before calling it quits.
“The captain was very, very important those days - very important to the development of spin bowlers in first class cricket. But, in this age of cricket, with so much Twenty20 around that relies completely on economy rate, it has become tougher,” says one of the most glamorous cricketer in the history of the game, during a promotional event in the Capital here on Thursday.
“What I’m hearing is that some guys are all pretty talented leg spinners when they are 14, 15 or 16 years old. By the time they are 17, they are playing men’s cricket. There, if they get hit for a few sixes, the captain takes them off. If they get hit for too many sixes, the captain goes back to the medium pace bowler with a ring field to get the economy rate down. And these guys lose interest.”
The blonde, who would don the role of a commentator for the final Test between India and Australia, starting Friday, then quite cheekily admits to have tried giving “a long winded answer to one of the reasons why there are not many leg-spinners in international cricket now.” That effortlessly draws a round of awed smiles and laughters, once again reaffirming the fact that the guy did and would get away with anything.
“We inspired so many young players to try leg spin but then what’s happening is when they are playing men’s cricket, their captains don’t have the patience. We are going for left-arm spinners and off-spinners, who bowl accurate and with good economy rate,” he provides a conclusion before getting into ifs and whats of Australia’s performance.
“A lot of young players in this Australian team have not had much experience here. Australian players don’t play in such conditions. It does take a bit of time. When I played, it took me two tours to understand. 1998 and 2001 were excellent tours but we didn’t know how to win here - how to bowl, how to bat, how to do different things in these conditions. It took us third tour to understand how to win here,” Warne says, giving the hosts their due credit. “You can’t just blame Australia. India played fantastic too.
“India played exceptionally hard and expressive cricket and the young players took their opportunity. like Shikhar Dhawan scoring century in the last Test and (Cheteshwar) Pujara grabbed his chance.
“I still think there are four or five players though in Australia who should be in and around the team. There are a lot of talents in Australia but just got to start picking the right team,” he makes his point anyway for the Australian selectors, but adds that holding coach Mickey Arthur responsible for everything would be a mistake.
“Making Arthur a scapegoat would be unfair on him. The entire team is responsible for this debacle,” he straightaway quashes suggestions of sacking Arthur and quite unlike him even supports the team management’s famous decision of suspending four players.
“If you see the incident in isolation you will find the punishment a bit hard. But I am sure there must have been many more things in the lead up to the expulsion,” says the 43-year-old, appearing as if he has started taking a liking to wisdom, you can call it being politically correct too.