The retirement of Shane Warne comes as a disappointment for his fans across the world. But everyone has to resign to fate and so this was on cards!

Shane Warne is unarguably one of the greatest leg spinners the world of cricket has seen. In fact it is his bowling which came as a lifeline to ailing art of leg spin bowling and lifted it from dumps.

A character on the field, his off the field ‘antiques’ ensured that he was in the thick of controversies and limelight. But every time a challenge ‘on the field’ surfaced, there was Warne upto the task.

What makes him special is his simple bowling action and the degree of turn which he extracts from wickets. Even mundane wickets which do not offer help to spin around the world such as those in England and South Africa, too responded to his bowling and offered lots of assistance!
His bowling’s uniqueness is the ‘rip’ which he imparts on the bowl. A leg spinner’s turn on the ball is directly proportional to the number of revolutions which he imparts on the ball. This coupled with some others aspects like use of crease, trajectory and loop makes his spin bowling a force to reckon!

It was the culmination of all these in a near perfect proportionthat has gone into the making of Warne. A short run up, simple action, a good pivot, an excellent trajectory and fascinating degree of turn is Warne encapsulated!

Warne embarked in his cricketing career by playing against India but his moment of reckoning came when he got Mike Gatting in Ashes Series. That ball created history for the world saw something that had been lost for decades, a exemplary display of spin bowling with a young bowler extracting turn prodigiously. The ball has been judged as the “ball of the century”, as it pitched outside the leg stump and knocked the off stump of Mike Gatting who played a forward defensive shot. The dismissal left Gatting and the world spell bound. Viewers all over the world knew a leg spinner had arrived to fascinate and stay!

The greatness of Warne lies in the fact that he has picked wickets all over the world and against all cricketing nations. Whether the pitch supports spin was irrespective for the fact is Warne has turned the ball on pitches unsuited for spin bowling.

Another great feature of his bowling was the way he set his batsmen up. Apart from prodigious turn, his googlies, top spinners and drifters left many batsmen around the world bamboozled. He is a bowler who can bowl six different type of deliveries in an over which goes to show the abundant talent he possesses as a leg spinner.

English batsmen form the lion’s share amongst his victims while he has been relative unsuccessful against Indians. His hammering at the hands of Tendulkar when Australia toured India served as a delight to the fans. Warne himself acknowledged that Tendulkar’s treatment gave him nightmares for many a nights to come!

I heard Terry Jenner once, who coached Shane Warne that ‘.. Leg spinners are a rare breed. Not every one is destined to be a leg spinner. It is those whom God taps on the head end up being leg spinners’.

Very true indeed, for Warne is one bowler who enthralled and inspired an entire generation of fans and it will take another entire life for a bowler of his class to come!

The first test between India and host South Africa gets underway today at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. The Indian captain who suffered an injury during the one day international series between the two sides addressed a press conference in a positive fashion. He asserted that the team still had a few tricks to surprise the opposition and it would be ‘dangerous to write the Indian team off’. But despite such statements, a feel of nerves could be felt.

A whitewash in the one day series has not done any good to the morale of the Indian team which has rested a few players like Irfan Pathan. The team looked jitterey throughout its performance and was found wanting in pacy and bouncy conditions. One felt that they were like a pack of cards waiting to be blown away by a gusty gale of pace bowling!

Not too much has changed for the Indian team since then except for the inclusion of Sourav Ganguly. His inclusion does bolster the team’s batting line-up but one would have to see how he adapts to the short and rising ball. Ntini and Nel would certainly exploit Ganguly’s vulnerability against the rising ball. Dada would have to come with some plan!

Another worry is the opening pair. I would have to admit that Sehwag in these conditions is not the best of batsman for the opener’s slot. Openers in such conditions should be the ‘Mike Atherton’ types who are judicious in their shot selection. A bang bang approach does not help a batsman at the top for he runs the risk of losing his wicket to an ordinary ball too. I would have preferred a batsman like an Akash Chopra instead of Sehwag to open with Jaffer as the duo could drop the anchor and provide a good start upfront.

The bowlers have a better deal as compared to the batsmen but they too will have to bowl out of their skins to get twenty wickets in an innings, a ‘feat’ that seems a distant reality at present. Lack of discipline and inconsistency is something bowlers would have to look out for in their performance. ‘It is not brief spells of excellence intertwined with erratic spells of insouciance that is required but prolonged spells of perseverance and application’!

Although the Indian batting looks formidable on paper, their reputation of being clay targets against a world class bowling attack on bowler friendly conditions is something we already know. The stage is set, the actors ready and another script of agony, discomfort and ignominy could await the Indian team and its batting lineup if it does not adapt to the conditions quickly!
Definitely the underdogs, the Indians would have to play like David to defeat a Goliath of an opposition waiting to maul them.