The Magician

I like sports. Some I just like to watch, others I like to play and there’s a few that I’m happy to be either spectator or participant. My favourites? Football, cricket, tennis, in that order. I don’t get to play much football or cricket anymore though. It’s likely that I never will again. I’m getting old. That’s a shame.

I played cricket at school. I liked to bowl, medium pace. I was an accurate, steady bowler but never spectacular. No one objected to me having an over or two. No one ever looked in my direction when we needed something extra to grab a wicket or two. And ultimately, I was much better at catching a ball.

I spent many sunny afternoons at silly mid on with a spin bowler. Or as a slip with a fast one. Cricketing memories are always of sunny afternoons, which is odd because most of them would have been overcast or even a bit wet. In fact, it’s utterly bizarre that cricket, a sport which is promptly abandoned at the very suggestion of a spot of drizzle, was an English invention.

I ended up as a wicket keeper though. I could catch the ball. I didn’t much want to be a wicket keeper, because that condemned me the the 2nd XI team. A classmate was a rather good wickie and batsman. What I mean by rather good is that he captained the youth team at county level, went on to play for England and junior level and routinely hit centuries – which is unheard of in schoolboy cricket. I was unlikely to displace him in the 1st XI team. Indeed, I didn’t.

On the plus side, this did mean I excelled in the 2nd XI. We had a decent team and won most of our matches. I also batted, usually at No.4. I got into the team having smashed a very creditable 40 at the beginning of term. It was the closest I came to a half century. My innings ended when I mistimed a drive, the ball clipping the top of my bat, and gently looping into the gloves of the wickie.

Then I left school and never played cricket again. Which is a shame. I just watch cricket. And listen to it. There is nothing as soothing as the sound of a cricket game on the wireless. The gentle commentary, Blofeld and Benaud, back in the day. Tthe distant chants of the fans. You can almost smell the freshly cut grass coming over the airwaves.

I watch and listen. Especially when the Ashes come round. Even though it can only ever feature the same two teams over and over, it is to every Englishman and Aussie, the pinnacle of the game. My fondest memories of cricket feature Botham, Pieterson, Flintoff and Stokes performing heroics in the Ashes.

But for most of my adult life, the moments of English glory have been but brief episodes punctuated by a stream of misery and defeat. With one man at the heart of it. Shane Warne. Gosh, I hated that guy. Or I tried. How can you not want to hate the destroyer of dreams, the harbinger of sporting humiliation, the architect of annihilation? But he’s just such a dude. A top bloke. The guy every school kid and young bloke wants to be.

Most people reading this won’t have understood a word of it. Too much alien jargon. You’ve just about gathered that Shane Warne was a great player. How to put him in context you’re familiar with? You can usually compare sportsmen to Ali, or Pele, or Federer. But for Shane Warne, you need to think Harry Potter. His ball of the century was pure witchcraft.

Shane Warne just died, far too young at 52, and I find that really sad. He may have finished playing some time ago. But he’d settled himself into the commentary game with the same ease he sent countless batsmen back to the pavilion. People are leaving flowers for him, as you do. And also pies, packets of cigarettes and tins of lager. Because he was an everyday, every man’s type sporting hero. Amazon Prime’s Shane documentary is worth an hour and a half of your time

RIP Shane Warne.