Shane Warne death: ‘Ball of the century’ victim Mike Gatting at peace with his part in history
He was an Ashes-winning captain but Mike Gatting considers it a badge of honour rather than a curse that it is Shane Warne’s ‘ball of the century’ for which he will be remembered forever.
Cricket
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cricket. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Mike Gatting may have felt shock and humiliation at the time, but he is now honoured that his pain was cricket’s gain.
The victim of Shane Warne’s ‘ball of the century’, Gatting has revealed his devastation at the shock death of the Australian cricketing icon, who he shares an indelible bond with thanks to a moment in history which developed into a close, personal friendship.
Gatting told News Corp how Warne once thanked him “for missing it”, because it was the moment that catapulted the leg-spinner into a stratosphere of superstardom and greatness which may never be repeated.
The England captain says he realised as the years went by that what happened that day in 1993 at Old Trafford was not about him, but about the game and the millions of people Warne inspired around the globe.
Gatting was an Ashes-winning England captain and a distinguished international batsman, but he considers it a badge of honour rather than a curse that it is the ‘ball of the century’ for which he will be remembered forever.
“What I would have been really upset about was if he bowled me with that ball and then not gone onto get 708 wickets. If he’d got 38 wickets I might have been really pissed off,” Gatting told News Corp from the UK.
“As a sportsperson you want to be remembered, for the right things hopefully, but sometimes it’s because of an incident that helps the game or promotes the game or promotes an individual.
“Playing a sport like this, you’ll have your ups and downs, but there are moments that are just seminal moments that people won’t forget.
“I was on the wrong end of it possibly, but on the right end of it for cricket, because the man became the inspiration for many, many people and it is part of history.
“It’s a lovely part of history, and it’s lovely to be a part of it.”
Gatting, who was relishing his next meeting with the spin king this coming July, said it was never lost on Warne how big that ‘ball of the century’ was for his career.
“I think he says it changed his life. It gave him that belief, and that real inner belief that you need and he was never not going to make the most of it,” said Gatting.
“He was that passionate about the game, he wanted to win, he wanted to be that person and leg-spin being the thing that he did, was quite amazing.
“He just said to me, ‘mate, all I tried to do was get it down the other end. The captain asked me to bowl it pretty straight and pretty full and that’s all I really tried to do. I tried to spin it as hard as I could and that was about it. I didn’t know what it was going to do after that.’
“He said, ‘thanks for missing it.’”
Warne and Gatting sat on the ICC’s World Cricket Committee for many years and some of the Englishman’s favourite memories in the game are bonding over a glass of wine with the man who bowled him all those years ago.
A man, who when the next Ashes came around in 1994-95 – Gatting’s last tour – had the cheek to sledge the Englishman about his age.
“Warnie walked around calling me, ‘Mr Gatting’ for the whole trip like I was an old git,” Gatting said.
“My most lovely memories are sitting down with him having a glass and just talking about cricket.
“He always wanted to make the game even better for people and more enjoyable.
“When you had him to yourself or with just the four or five of you around the table for the World Cricket Committee, you understood the passion of the bloke.
“I’m devastated really to be perfectly honest. I got up (the day after) thinking ‘oh, it can’t be true. It was always like he was indestructible because of all he’s done and all he’s been through. It’s just very hard to get to grips with.
“He had so much to offer the game and so much to continue offering the game, it’s just so unfair.”
For Gatting, he has only one regret about Warne and his career.
“For me one of the really sad things that everybody in the world missed, not just me, was I think we all wanted to see Warnie captain Australia,” said Gatting.
“Guys like Beefy (Ian Botham) have tried and sometimes not really done well with it, but I just have the sneaky suspicion that Warnie would have been able to cope with it.
“The only thing that might have stopped him might have been the fact that he was Shane Warne and all that goes with it.”
Barmy Army pays tribute to their ‘Mr Cricket’ Warne
-Nick Smart
The Barmy Army, who enjoyed well over a decade of lively banter with the late, great Shane Warne, has paid the spin king the ultimate compliment following his untimely death.
Barmy Army co-founder and chairman Paul Burnham has posted a tribute on behalf of the all-singing England cricket supporters club, declaring “they wished he was English.”
“One thing that we always used to say was that we wished he was English,” Burnham said.
“It was genuine, we wished he was English.
“Ironically, if he had been then the Barmy Army wouldn’t be where it is today.
“If we’d have done so well in the 90s then maybe coming from adversity wouldn’t have been such a big part of the Barmy Army DNA.
“It’s a weird one, it’s a really sad day. It’s a credit to the man the reaction we’re seeing from ex-players and fans.
“I’ve been inundated with messages saying they can’t believe Shane Warne is gone. None of them negative from anybody.
“He was just an unbelievable character, he had celebrities on his phone. He was Mr Cricket. They say Mike Hussey was and all due respect to Mike but Shane Warne was Mr Cricket.”
Burnham said the Barmy Army enjoyed their running battles with Warne, even if the Australian legend always had the upper hand.
“I remember in Sydney on the 1994/95 tour, we got everyone singing ‘Stand up if you hate Shane Warne’ and were thinking ‘We’ve got him here’ and what does he do, he sits down. He could orchestrate the crowd like that,” he said.
“He waited and then went on to bowl an unbelievable spell as ever. He orchestrated the game on the pitch and off, he was a one-man walking genius.
“There were loads of great memories but they’re mainly ones of trepidation.
“When you’re having a good session, you’re thinking ‘we’ve got through that, you never know, this could happen’, and then he gets the ball.
“Of course, we stood up to sing songs but I think every single time he got the ball we were realistic in that we knew it was just a matter of time before he started changing the match back into the Australian’s favour, if it wasn’t already there in the first place.
“He is undoubtedly the best cricketer that has ever played the game. As far as I’m concerned that is not in dispute. For me, he is the best cricketer. End of.
“I keep saying the word legend, not because I don’t have lots of words to say but because he was a legend. Genuinely a legend.”
PIERS MORGAN: MY GREAT MATE WARNIE WASN’T LIKE REST OF US
Piers Morgan
Shane Warne messaged me yesterday morning, seconds after I tweeted this observation about Vladimir Putin holding the world to ransom over nuclear weapons: “When did we get so pathetically spineless in the face of nasty little bullies?”“Spot on mate!” agreed Warnie, which was an unsurprising response from a man who never shirked a confrontation on or off a cricket field.
I’d been in regular touch with him during the past fortnight because I was in Australia, and we were planning a round of golf and dinner in his hometown Melbourne that sadly never happened due to unseasonably bad weather keeping me in Sydney.
Now I’ll never play golf or have dinner with my great mate again, nor enjoy any more of his forthright, hilarious, and often very candid stream of consciousness on WhatsApp (last week, we had a hysterically funny argument about the merits of yeast concentrates, with him insisting, “Vegemite doesn’t stick to your teeth like Marmite”) and that realisation makes me incredibly sad.
News of Shane’s death hit me like a sucker-punch, as it will have done so many people all over the world.
He was a complete one-off, a blonde-haired blokey bundle of restless, mischievous, ferociously competitive, massive-hearted, cigar-chomping, pizza-loving, larrikin fun.
He was also a cricketing genius, in my view the greatest bowler that ever played the game thanks to his huge and ridiculously skilful spinning fingers causing the ball to do things that would utterly humiliate even the finest batsmen.
This unique talent, and his gigantic irrepressible personality, made him arguably the sport’s most charismatic figure, one of very few cricketers, like Sir Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff, to become genuine household-name celebrities.
That’s why there’s been such an enormous outpouring of shock, love and respect for him since the horrendous news broke of his horribly untimely death at just 52.
Shane loved the limelight, and the limelight loved him – even if it occasionally dragged him through the controversy mincer.
His prolific headline-grabbing love life, which included a lengthy romance with Elizabeth Hurley, didn’t win him any husband-of-the-year awards, but by his own admission, he found women irresistible, and they often felt the same about this rugged, twinkle-eyed, resolutely macho man.
One of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed was gay Strictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli jokingly suggesting at a charity dinner that Shane might fancy “crossing to the other side” for the night.
”No chance!” stammered a flustered Warney, “you’re barking up completely the wrong tree there, mate!”
Shane’s ‘go big or go home’ attitude to life was similar to one of his heroes, hellraiser actor Charlie Sheen.
I introduced them a few years ago when I interviewed Sheen in a London theatre and Shane begged to come as my guest.
”I hear you’re a great … is it ‘bowler’?” chuckled Charlie.
”Correct!” laughed Shane.
”He’s also the only man alive who can look at your lifestyle and say, ‘Lightweight’,” I added.
”Oh really?” scoffed Charlie. “Maybe we should test that theory?”
They chatted for a while, getting on like long-lost twins, then Shane went off to find his seat in the audience.
Towards the end of the interview, I asked Charlie: “Which famous woman would you most like to seduce?”
”Oh, that hot English lady,” he responded, “what’s her name … erm … Liz Hurley!”
”That’s a bit awkward given her ex, Shane, is in the audience,” I replied, to huge laughter from the crowd. “Especially as you met him in my dressing room earlier.”
Charlie was horrified.
”HE’S her EX?”
”He is …”
”Oh man,” he shouted out at Shane, “I’m sorry!”
Afterwards, Shane texted me to say: “What a classic! That kind of s**t only ever happens to me, hahaha!”
In fact, that kind of s**t often happened to Shane because he sought it out with the gleeful enthusiasm of a hyperactive Labrador.
Shane packed more fun into his 52 years than anyone I’ve met in my entire life
When I interviewed him for GQ magazine, he admitted: ‘‘The problem is there’s still a big kid inside me who likes to have fun. I am passionate about my cricket and I love my family, but I’m also a kid, and maybe I need to grow up, and maybe I don’t. Life isn’t a rehearsal, it’s about having fun.”
Shane never really grew up, because he never really wanted to.
But my God, he packed more fun into his 52 years than anyone I’ve met in my entire life.
And for all his self-confessed marital flaws, he was a brilliant loving father to his three children, a wonderful caring son to his ever-supportive parents, and a fantastically loyal, kind and generous friend.
He was one of the first people to call me when I left Good Morning Britain a year ago over the Meghan Markle debacle, raging with fury that I’d lost my job for having an opinion, and when TV regulators OFCOM later ruled in my favour, he texted to say: “Congrats on the verdict mate, keep smashing every idiot and holding them accountable – love it!”
(Like me, Shane had a deep-rooted aversion to the cancel culture woke brigade, whining snowflakes, lying politicians and political correctness.)
If he said he’d do something for you, he’d do it, and always with a smile on his face and time for everyone.
He played twice in my annual cricket match against my Sussex village of Newick, and both times spent hours signing autographs, posing for selfies and chatting to the delighted locals. He also showed the village team zero mercy and celebrated victory like we’d won the Ashes.
Shane was superbly quick-witted which made him not just great company but also one of cricket’s most acclaimed sledgers.
South African batsman Daryll Cullinan once stupidly admitted in an interview that he got so badly beaten by Warne during one series he sought out psychiatric therapy afterwards.
”It made me realise it’s important to play the ball not the man,” said Cullinan confidently.
Next time they played each other, Shane said: “Hi Daryll, what colour was the couch? Because I’m sending you right back there.”
The last time I saw him was four months ago at the Dunhill Links pro-am golf tournament in Scotland.
He stormed the stage to belt out a raucous rendition of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones
Shane, a tremendously keen amateur, had made the cut for the final day, but his idea of preparation was partying hard until 5am, fuelled by his beloved vodka Red Bulls (”Bring me a new one every eight minutes until I fall over!” I heard him instruct a waiter at midnight).
At 3am, he stormed the stage to belt out a raucous rendition of Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, giving it the full frantic Jagger hip-wiggles at the microphone.
The next day, after just two hours sleep, and with a raging hangover, he played the greatest round of his life, holing birdie after birdie, outscoring his pro and nearly winning them the team competition.
”How the hell did you do that given the state you were in?” I texted him.
”Hahaha, I have no idea!” he replied.
Sporting greats aren’t made like the rest of us.
Shane Warne, in particular, wasn’t made like the rest of us.
As England cricket legend Allan Lamb put it to me: “He never had his foot off the pedal!”
I’m absolutely gutted he’s gone so soon and will miss him enormously.
But I enjoyed every second of my hundreds of hours in his exhilarating, unpredictable and always entertaining company, and of how many people in life can you say that?
RIP Warnie.
More Coverage
Originally published as Shane Warne death: ‘Ball of the century’ victim Mike Gatting at peace with his part in history
Convicted rapist set to play cricket in Aus
A cricketer who has been banned from playing cricket in England and Wales for 10 years will be allowed to play in Western Australia.
New World Cup challenge awaits Aussies
Australia hasn’t lost a T20 to New Zealand for more than three years, but something is happening to the Kiwis at the World Cup.