Former MLA Ken Vowles says Shane Warne was put on a bus from Darwin to Adelaide after ‘playing up” on a cricket academy trip

Shane Warne’s career got the “kick up the arse” it needed after he “played up” during a visit to Darwin, a friend and former NT politician believes.

Darwin remained a “special place” for the late Shane Warne where he received the “kick up the arse” his burgeoning career needed, friend and former MLA Ken Vowles says.

The cricketing world was stunned overnight to hear of the passing of the sport’s number one spinner from a suspected heart attack in a Thailand villa.

Vowles became unlikely friends with the blonde bamboozler during his time at Adelaide’s Australian Cricket Academy in the late 1980s and early 90s.

However, he said Warnie developed a “real affinity” for Darwin after being sent home on a Greyhound bus after “playing up” during an academy trip which reportedly involved an act of “mooning”.

“It took three or four days to get home,” Vowles told NT News.

“It’s a nightmare when you’ve been flying everywhere and you’re on the cusp of making it, it was a real reality shock (for Warne).”

Warne was told he needed to improve his attitude or he would end up just “another bloke who can bowl some leg spin who could have made it”, Vowles recalled.

He would quit the academy and return to his native Victoria, but Vowles believed Darwin remained a “special place” despite the acrimonious exit.

“Darwin is where he got his kick up the arse. That really kicked him off,” he said.

Warne returned to Darwin in July, 2004 for the Top End’s second-ever test match, taking 3/20 in a 149-run win.

Vowles said he and Warne, although they were “polar opposites”, bonded at the academy over their excess weight and aversion to running.

Shane Warne bowls against Sri Lanka in Darwin in July, 2004. Picture: Patrina Malone

He also recalled the academy demanding its inductees to have a part time job and contribute to society.

However, Warnie was having none of that, Vowles remembered.

“Warnie didn’t like that, so he got an ABN and got his mum and dad to pay him each week,” he said.

“He was like: ‘I’m not doing that, mate’. I’m just going to sunbake and eat chips and bowl leg spin and smoke durries’. And that’s what he did.”

Vowles got a job working in a beachside tuck shop, bought by inaugural academy coach Jack Potter.

“Most days Warnie would turn up and talk cricket, smoke his durries, sunbake and look at women… what he did all his life,” he said.

“Warnie and I, we spent a lot of time at the beach.”

He said Warne eventually “came out of nowhere” to become the country’s greatest spinner, and arguably, its biggest sporting identity.

“The whole world knows Warnie, even if you’re not a cricket fan,” he said.

“When he got that red cherry in his hand, he was the best.

“Between 10am and 6pm he’s the greatest leg spinner ever. After that, he’s just a normal bloke who never understood his fame.”

Vowles said he was shattered by the loss of his friend: “I’ve just lost a mate, I’m really struggling with it.”

MORE CRICKET NEWS - The Grade Cricketer takes on the Top End

One half of the witty, two-man team behind the immensely popular The Grade Cricketer has moved to The Top End — and a Darwin cricket club is poised to inspire his next batch of oh-so-true observations.

Former Balmain and North Sydney grade cricketer, Sam Perry, who began tweeting anonymous, satirical asides back in 2012 – which has since spawned a podcast, two books and a TV show – has ventured north with his partner Tori and their two children, Ted and Barney.

Tori, a doctor, is studying general and emergency paediatrics in Darwin, which includes a rural posting.

Landing in Darwin earlier this month, and keen to make a connection with a local cricket club, Perry has so far embraced the heat, humidity and regional harmony of the Territory.

“I love it… I just love the tropical weather,” an erudite yet cheeky Perry told NT News over a coffee at Nightcliff cafe, Lucky Bat (naturally).

“It’s great to have a change and to explore somewhere new.

The Grade Cricketer founder Sam Perry landed in Darwin earlier this month. Picture: Glenn Campbell.

“I want it to be a big adventure. I plan on making every post a winner... see as many things as I can and meet as many people as I can.”

It’s not the couple’s biggest adventure, however.

They moved to the UK in 2017 for two years, where Perry found himself selected in the “Authors XI” for a series of local cricket games.

He pulled on the whites alongside luminaries Jonathon Wilson and Tom Holland, tackling the likes of the “Actors XI”, who apparently had some quite theatrical appealers.

Perry recalls Holland, in between innings, quickly penning an article about a looming ISIS invasion before taking the new rock.

“Each team would live up to their stereotype, the authors no different. Neurotic, self-interested. Me included,” he said.

Perry with former The Grade Cricketer member Dave Edwards in 2015. Picture: David Geraghty.

Sparse cricketing forays aside, “TGC” has become a full time occupation for himself and co-conspirator Ian Higgins.

It’s been a totally unplanned success for Perry, who started a Twitter account for a lark after his own grade cricket career wound up, with no clear strategy in place other than to just send up the “grim, dark outpost of the game”.

It followed a popular blog post – How To Make It In Grade Cricket – which created enough buzz to warrant esteemed author Gideon Haigh and former Australian coach Justin Langer to comment underneath.

“That was the first thing I’ve ever published,” he said.

“It was satirising with a little bit of truth. I think it just resonated with cricketers.”

Suddenly, with the account’s followers jumped by “many thousands” one night back in 2012, Perry realised he may have struck a rein vein of cricket-related comedy, perhaps not seen since the halcyon days of the 12th Man.

For the uniniated, TGC painfully, sometimes poignantly, captures and deconstructs the tragic characters and grim realities of local cricket clubs – poised tantalisingly below the state level – with unnervingly pinpoint accuracy.

Perry said cricket was “bigger and richer than how it’s presented on TV by seasoned athletes”, and the tribulations of the thousands of cricketers who never quite made it, served up untapped fodder.

The Grade Cricketer captures the tragic nature of the sport. Picture: The Grade Cricketer.

“Grade cricket is such a great environment of characters, and it’s largely not seen and not celebrated by the broader cricketing sphere,” he said.

“There’s a depth to the people and characters and social rhythms of it, than just guys hitting bombs and being freaks on TV.

“That’s probably why it resonated.

“(It’s been) a gentler way to talk about these things through comedy. Sometimes satire helps the medicine go down.”

They say you only write about what you know, so Perry is keen to foster some connections with local clubs to keep his writing fresh and ultimately relevant.

“The game evolves and the people within it evolve as well,” he said.

“I want to make sure I’m still familiar with the rhythms of it... rather than remembering it in your head.”

Perry is initially reluctant to reflect too much on his own career but admits he “missed out on the mitts”, and the powerful physique, to go all the way with his leg spin.

Although it turns out he made a 79 not out in his final grade match, filling in for Norths in 2010 (“I hadn’t had a hit in a year. So I concluded that training doesn’t matter”).

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of comic tales to be found from his own career — at one point guided by former Tasmanian wicketkeeper Mark Atkinson at Balmain.

Perry departs North Sydney Oval after being dismissed LBW against Eastern Suburbs, including a young David Warner (far left), in 2007. Picture: John Appleyard.

There was the time Perry was “mistakenly chosen” for a first grade trial match against Penrith, where selectors picked the wrong Sam, Perry instead of Hinton, a junior teammate.

“Wires got crossed,” he said.

“The manager called my dad the night before, told him what a great prospect I was.

“I was elated. At no point did I consider it was in error. Nobody said anything to indicate it might’ve been a mistake all day.”

Perry proved he was far from over his head, too, acquiring 2/20 off six bowling during the middle overs, and with it, a degree of swag around the club.

“At the club selection night that evening... I looked down on my old lower grade teammates, before getting picked in fourth grade,” he said.

“(They) explained my selection that day had been in error.

“The laughter was uproarious. I was pretty red-faced.”

There was also the afternoon he had a run-in with former Australian left-arm pacer Doug Bollinger.

Perry played grade cricket for North Sydney and Balmain. Picture: John Appleyard.

The cult figure, known as “Doug the Rug”, was fuming after Perry slashed him away for a boundary behind square.

Then, after Perry stole a suicide run next ball, a wayward throw missed everything and ended up in the boundary fence.

“(Bollinger) said: ‘You know where the next one’s coming don’t you? I said: ‘No’,” Perry recalled.

“It was a bouncer. I was pleased for the warning to be honest.”