Towards the end of 1993, the year that turned Shane Warne into the legendary figure befitting a memorial in front of more than 50,000 people at the MCG, he and Tim May spun Australia to an innings victory over New Zealand in Hobart.
Nothing unusual about that given his prodigious gifts; apart from the fact that on the penultimate night of the Test match, Warne and May went out on the town and did not get home until about 4am.
They spun quickly through the remaining tourists the next morning, eluding the wrath of captain Allan Border. So began a cricketing life pattern of big nights and big performances that Warne’s cricket contemporaries marvelled about in their tributes on a night created entirely in his honour.
Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Merv Hughes reminisce about Shane Warne at his MCG memorial.Credit: Joe Armao
State and international teammates have spoken about how playing alongside Warne in those earlier days was a case of watching a knockabout young wrist spinner turn into a celebrity right before their eyes.
Border related how on the 1994 tour of South Africa he learned that Warne was moving in different circles when, over a game of golf, he successfully joshed the diamond billionaire Nicky Oppenheimer into giving him a real diamond earring to replace the zirconia stud he had been wearing.
“As good as he was on the cricket field, he was five times better off it,” said Merv Hughes. “One of the most loyal people you know. He did what he did because of who he is - I feel sorry for people who never met him.”
Opponents, such as the former England captain Nasser Hussain, undoubtedly enjoy the memories of combating him far more with the benefit of hindsight. Hussain recounted the tale of how he tried to taunt Warne during the triangular series of 1998-99, only to meet an embarrassing Waterloo.
“He seemed to just wait for me to come out,” he said. “There was one of these triangular finals in 1999, and he’d been sledging me all day. He brought himself on to bowl ... I’ve sledged him, said something like enjoy your last game as captain - which at the time seemed a really good thing to do.
“We needed 40 off 10 overs with seven wickets in hand and I’m sure you’ve got the footage - stumped Gilchrist bowled Warne. We lost 7-30, lost by 10 runs and ‘Bumble’ [England coach David Lloyd] didn’t speak to me for a month.”
Brian Lara, who announced his own genius in the same series as Warne in the summer of 1992-93, was generous in putting his 277 at the SCG down to damp weather and a wet ball, making it hard for the wrist spinner to grip. As telling, though, was the effect Warne’s MCG 7-52 had on a West Indian team that were then still the world’s best.
“Our entire team was in a panic before that Test match,” Lara said. “Why was there panic? Shane came here in the second innings, took 7-52, and announced himself to international cricket there and then. We were in a panic from Melbourne to Sydney, thinking it was all over.”
Lara shared Warne’s yearning not only for greatness on the field, but nightlife off it. Four years ago, Warne wrote in his third and final autobiography No Spin about feeling the need for some extracurricular activity to keep him going amid the treadmill of international cricket. He was not the first to do so, but among the last.
“When you bowl 35 overs in a day, the next day hurts. To get out of bed then, geez, everything hurts – everything,” Warne wrote. “Add in a late night, 10 vodka/Red Bulls and 50 fags: well, I’d have to say I was a legend to have turned my arm over the following morning!
“Apparently, Garry Sobers was a genius of the ‘next day’ after a big night out. Ian Botham wasn’t bad either. I get it. Sometimes you need that escape, for whatever reason, and then, wow, you’d better perform, so you do.
“If you said to Justin Langer or one of those guys, ‘Come out with me till three or four in the morning drinking and smoking,’ they wouldn’t be able to turn up the next day, let alone play. But it worked for me because I was being myself – not every night, but often enough to escape and chill.”
To provide all present with an attitude of reflection, Warne’s memorial went on without the service of any alcohol, at the request of his family. In a few ways this too was fitting - after curbing some early excesses, Warne was far from the beer guzzler.
“I’d have the odd ice-cold one after a hard bowling day, but just a soda or a lemon, lime, bitters if we’d been batting,” he once wrote. “People think I’m this bloke out on the piss every night, but I go three, four days or much longer without a drink. I don’t need to drink - but I do need some fun.”