I've just posted this on Twitter and pretty much covers my thoughts on Warnie.
It's taken me almost a week to absorb the passing of SK Warne. Like many, I read the tributes over the past few days and acknowledged the effect he had on the cricketing world and further afield, watched a few replays and tried to put it to the back of my mind.
But it wasn't until I listened to the raw, unfiltered Fox Sports tribute to Warnie that aired last Saturday - hastily but brilliantly put together, might I add - via Mark Howard's Howie Games podcast channel that it fully sunk in and almost left me a blubbering mess at the airport before my flight today. That's no mean feat for a broadcast to do that to an emotionally-bereft bloke like me. I did say "almost" though.
Like I mentioned on Twitter shortly after his passing, I was a 90s cricketing cliche. At 13 in 1992, I was an adequate offie for my school's 6th XI. One year later, in no small part thanks to Warnie and Pakistani wristie Mushtaq Ahmed, I was a determined leggie. As chance would have it, this was excellent timing as I'd just started going to noted coach and former player Billy Ibadulla in Dunedin for coaching and from there, I thrived as well as a leggie in Dunedin possibly can. I just wish I had the mental fortitude that Warnie had, as that may have opened a few more doors for me. Instead, my SW23-esque confidence in the nets dissipated to a mixed bag of good returns and failure when I hit the great wide open of a cricket oval.
Naturally, I tried to replicate Warnie's action (although Billy made me change a few things - for the better) and tried to add a few of his tricks as well. Billy started teaching me the flipper once he was happy enough with the accuracy of my stock delivery. I never quite nailed it but certainly didn't stop trying.
I didn't actually see the great man in action too often in the flesh - the first time was at Carisbrook in a NZ cricket centenary tournament match between Aussie and India where Warnie took a lot of tap (0-61) but it was still a privilege to watch him before I actually had to duck away for what would be one of my personal lifetime highlights. The Pakistan under-19 team was in NZ and Billy arranged for me and one other spinner to come along and bowl to young batsman Saleem Elahi. What was more exciting though was that a teenage Saqlain Mushtaq was bowling alongside us, and I even recall Billy talking to him about how to bowl the doosra. For the record, I beat Saleem Elahi's bat once and once only.
That experience, and others such as attending a coaching clinic with his mentor Terry Jenner (even if he told me I was all energy and minimal spin), would not have come about if I hadn't been captivated by the brash Victorian with a diet almost as questionable as mine.
My story is but one of tens of thousands from across the world generated by youngsters taking up leg spin thanks to Warnie. It's no understatement to say he revived the art of leg spin from relative obscurity and added another dimension to an already fascinating sport.
The end of that Fox Sports tribute - a clip voiced over by Warnie over a musical bed of "Fix You" by his great mate Chris Martin and Coldplay - says it all about a man who still had so much left to give: "here's the thing - I've never changed" and "I think I'm lucky - I'm thankful for my life". He sounds like a great mate to his friends, a great dad to his kids, and one hell of an entertainer who - despite being a bit rough around the edges - left cricket so much richer for his time in the game. You deserved every theatric bow you took in front of adoring fans. Vale Warnie.