Thirty years since the ball of the century: ‘I was trying to figure out what the bloody hell was going on’

Thirty years ago on Sunday, June 4, the late, great Shane Warne conjured THAT ball to dismiss Mike Gatting, a delivery that would help propel the peroxide blond to cricket superstardom.

Shortly before lunch on the second day of the opening Test of the 1993 Ashes at Old Trafford, captain Allan Border summoned Warne to bowl his first spell.

It was a bowling change that was to set the stage for one of the most celebrated moments in the history of the game. To mark the delivery that came to be known as “the ball of the century”, this masthead has spoken to those who were on centre stage at the time.

Gatting, his batting partner and captain Graham Gooch, Australia skipper Border, wicketkeeper Ian Healy, first slip Mark Taylor and larrikin Merv Hughes bring their unique perspectives in their own words. At the time, none of them would have even countenanced that Warne was on the way to an incredible 708 Test wickets, bettered only by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan with 800.

‘You’re on next over’

Allan Border: “I was more concerned about them being 1-80, and we’d only made a modest score [289]. It was a pretty scungy batting effort [with a collapse on the second morning], so I was just thinking more about, ‘We need to get some wickets and how are we going to do it?’ I wasn’t really worried about a bloke bowling his first ball in England.

“Thinking back, the delay bringing him on was a bit of an odd one because we’d seen the ball was sticking and turning a little when we batted. The quickies looked like breaking through but didn’t, so throw the ball to Warne.

“Gat was a good player of spin, so I had a bit of a think about where we want to put the different blokes for him. There was no great fuss about it at all, just the usual ‘you’re on next over’, and then a bit of ‘good luck’ because I knew he would be a bit nervy first up bowling in England. ‘Just relax and let it rip’.

“I didn’t give him too attacking a field. ‘Let him ease into it’, was the thinking, not bat pads and two slips and all sorts like you might have a few years later. A bit of protection. There was no great theatre about it all, other than what happened next.”

Mike Gatting stands in disbelief after falling victim to Shane Warne’s “ball of the century” in 1993.Credit: Popperfoto

Mike Gatting: “I was just doing what I’d always done, watching the ball. I knew it was a leg-break, and as it came down it was a middle and leg line. And then, obviously, because it had been spun so much, it started drifting at the end, as it always does with balls like that, so it ended up pitching outside leg stump.

“So I really was worried about making sure it didn’t hit the leg stump. I opened up and put my pad in line. I wasn’t worried about it hitting the off stump, to be fair. I always look at photos of Heals [Healy] when he’s jumping up in the air, and he’s still down the leg side.

“It lifted the off bail and you just sort of think, ‘Crikey’. It was just an incredible ball from what was, fortunately, an incredible bowler because if he had been a surfie, as they all described him, if he wasn’t very disciplined or anything and he’s got about 40 wickets or something in Test cricket and faded out the game, I’d have been really upset having got a ball like that. But because he was probably the best of all time, including the likes of the great Richie Benaud, you don’t mind so much.”

Ian Healy: “In my crouch, I remember thinking, ‘He [Gatting] is a bit slow here, I can still see between his bat and his body and the ball’. But you still didn’t think it was going to hit the stumps. Most likely it was going to slide down leg, then I moved in case it goes down [the leg side]. I don’t really remember how I saw it spin back to the top of off, but that’s what happens in keeping. You sum everything up that you’ve seen before you lose sight of the ball, make a decision and be ready to see it somewhere else.

“And he was just too slow to get his bat down and his front foot just didn’t move far enough. He needed to get it out a touch more and smother it and get his bat down a little bit quicker. And then the ball spun past just enough to clip the top of the off stump.”

England captain Graham Gooch and Merv Hughes ham it up ahead of the first Test at Old Trafford in 1993.Credit: PA

Gatting: “Initially, I thought that because it spun so quickly, with Heals in his haste to get back with his hands, he either brushed the stumps or one of his feet had done something. Or it hit his hands and sort of bounced back onto the stumps because there was only one bail on the floor.

“And I didn’t hear it hit anything. You know, you hear the death rattle, you hear the ball hit the stumps, but it lifted the bail off. The bail has gone way up in the air because the ball is on its way up. The first thing I heard is Heals asking me to leave. The second thing I heard was Heals asking me to leave again while I was still standing there trying to figure out what the bloody hell was going on.

“And all I could see was one bail on the floor and I’m thinking, ‘Jeez, something must have happened’. I didn’t understand how I didn’t hear anything. It turned quite a long way. That was the other thing I couldn’t quite comprehend. It turned more than the width of the stumps.”

Graham Gooch: “Unlike Gat, who was not convinced that it just clipped the stump initially, from the non-striker’s end you had a good view of that. It was a fantastic delivery, especially first up as a leg-spinner. It was probably a bit miserable, the weather, and he managed to put the revs on it first up.

“I’m not saying every bowler bowls looseners, but a lot of them do, but he was full on first ball. The thing that made it difficult, really difficult, was that he started it probably on middle stump, which is a good line for a leg-spinner obviously, trying to get you to play across the line. That’s what he always used to do to me when I played against him. He would always bowl middle, middle and leg asking you to turn the face of the bat all the time. So asking you to hit the ball to mid-on, mid-wicket, that type of thing.

It is 30 years since Shane Warne bowled Mike Gatting with THAT ball.Credit: Getty

“He very rarely bowled full outside off stump. I can’t remember him doing it. I can’t remember ever driving him for four hardly. He dragged the odd one down and you cut it for four. But that ball started middle with plenty of revs, which made it drift towards outside leg stump and then turned across, and the rest is history.”

Mark Taylor: “It was probably a 15-degree day in Manchester, so it wasn’t ideal conditions to be bowling leg-spinners. He came on, sort of rubbing his hands, and I think he might have had a long-sleeve sweater on and took it off to bowl in a sleeveless sweater. Then he just went back and did what he normally did.

“I don’t think for a minute he ran in thinking, ‘I’m going to bowl this big drifting leg-spinner that’s going to drift from off to leg, pitch outside leg and then spin back and hit the top of off’. I think he was thinking, ‘Let’s just hope I can land this in the right area, get Gatting forward in defence, and then build from there’.

“But history will say the ball was this magnificent delivery and Gat had no idea where it was going. And I don’t think a lot of English players or anyone else probably would have played it much better.

“There was a bit of a confusion because I could tell from the sound more than anything. Heals blocked my view, a little bit, of the ball hitting the stumps, but I saw it spin and beat him. And then I heard the clunk and I could see the bail fly, so I knew it had bowled him.

“But a lot of people didn’t because they wouldn’t have heard the sound, and I think even Gat originally thought maybe that Heals had knocked the bail off; that it had spun past the edge of his bat and his body, and Heals may have bumped the stumps with his gloves or something like that.”

Allan Border during the 1993 Ashes tour.

Border: “I took my place at catching cover, so I didn’t see him run in and bowl, but I saw the ball clip the top of Gat’s off stump and just the look on his face. I’m thinking, ‘You beauty, we’ve got a second wicket and he’s a handy player to get rid of’. I didn’t really think about the quality of ball.

“And then, of course, Heals, who was behind the stumps, and Tubby [Taylor] and a few of the boys were saying, ‘That was an absolute ripper’. There was a bit of chat and they got excited about what they’d seen and, of course, I get excited as well because you think, ‘Well, that must have been pretty special’.

“Then we saw the replay and I think, ‘You’re right boys, that’s pretty good’. And Warnie grew in confidence in those two or three minutes. Bang, he’s got a wicket with his first [Test] ball in England. There’s a buzz going around, with our group out in the field. It was just instantaneous. Something special had just happened. We’ve witnessed something really special here.”

Merv Hughes: “I ran in from deep backward square and said to Heals, ‘What did that do?’ He said, ‘Pitched off, hit off’. Then we looked at the replay.

‘Heals?’ [I said].

‘Might have done a bit ...’ [Healy replied].

“It’s one of those balls that every time you see it, it gets better!”

Merv Hughes strikes Mike Atherton with a short ball during the 1993 Ashes.Credit: Getty

Warne recalls THAT ball on its 20th anniversary in 2013

“The whole Gatting ball thing, I suppose everyone says it’s the ball of the century etc, which is a pretty proud sort of thing. It’s pretty cool and sort of makes me feel pretty humble about how lucky I was to be in that thing and how lucky it was to happen. He could have easily missed it or nicked it.

“And I never did it again. It just shows you it really was a fluke, and it was meant to be.

“I was a bit nervous, actually. My thought process was, ‘Just try and get your rhythm first, try and spin a couple of big leg-breaks first, to get inside their head that the wicket is turning’.

“As soon as it released out of my hand, it felt really good. I didn’t realise, I don’t think, until we looked up at the screen ... I remember us all standing in the middle saying, ‘That was a pretty good ball’. Then I looked up and I went, ‘Geez’. And I was feeling pretty good after that because it was a pretty good cherry.”

How THAT ball changed the Ashes in 1993 and beyond

Border: “It gave us a real psychological advantage from that moment on in the series. England hadn’t faced a lot of that sort of bowling, maybe a little bit on the subcontinent. They were all good players, and they had some fantastic players of spin, but he [Warne] was a bit different.

“It sounds ridiculous, but you could hear the ball fizzing coming out of the hand – and the curl he got in the air plus the big leg-spin.”

Healy: “We were a little unsure on how we were going to defend these Ashes in England, so I think that was as high as you can rate as a psychological advantage or psychological impact. We’ve now got a more complete bowling attack that will be confident, and we’ve got their best player of spin very wary. And that means the rest of their batting order will be quite nervous, quite anxious for long periods, so I think as high an impact as you can rate.

Mark Taylor celebrates a century during the first Test at Old Trafford in 1993.Credit: PA

Taylor: “Warnie’s a confident guy, but if he doesn’t bowl that ball and he bowls OK in that series, you don’t know what may have happened. He may not have become the bowler that he did. That’s the unanswerable question. But there’s no doubt that gave him an extra lift.

“It had come after series against the West Indies and New Zealand where he was bowling well and we all knew it and he knew it, so he would have been confident prior to that ball. But you start like that and go, ‘Wow, all of a sudden, I’ve just removed Mike Gatting, considered one of the best if not the best player of spin in the England side. And I’ve got him out first ball totally deceived’. So, that was a great lift for us and no doubt would have been maybe the first nail in the coffin for that series. We went on and won the next Test at Lord’s and away we go.”

Gatting on returning to the England dressing room: “There was a bit of quietness. It was an amazing ball. He bowled a few more, obviously, after that, that didn’t turn anywhere near as much. But I think the fact of the matter was, the ball that bowled me, people were aware that he might be able to do that again, I suspect. And maybe they were thinking about that. We never really talked about it in the changing room, but maybe we were thinking that perhaps that’s going to happen again.

“The thing about Warnie after that, the one thing that he was so very good at all throughout his career, was his accuracy – because he could bowl big leg-breaks and top-spinners, and he had a really good flipper. He had the accuracy to go with the variety of balls he bowled.

“Heals would try and convince you later in his career that he was bowling different balls and he was trying to do this and trying to do that, but it was all for effect and for Warnie trying to get in the back of your mind. But the fact was he was very, very measly when it came to bad balls.”

As brilliant as it was, Warne’s immediate impact wasn’t just his life-changing first ball in England, it was his first spell. He claimed 3-14, dismissing freshly arrived Robin Smith caught at slip by Taylor, with another big-turning leg-break, then had a free-flowing Gooch bunt a full toss to mid-on. Gooch claimed he had not been distracted by what had gone before.

Merv Hughes dismisses Graham Gooch during the 1993 Ashes series.Credit: Reuters

Gooch: “Cricket is a one-ball game. Deal with one ball, draw a line under it, deal with the next ball. The next ball is the important ball.

“My only thought when I faced Warne was, ‘Watch for the flipper’. As for the full toss, it was quite a feat to pick out the only man on the leg side in front of square. It was meant to go to the boundary. Always a dangerous ball, the full toss.”

The great Ashes ambush

A month before the first Test, Australia played Worcestershire in a three-day match. England’s great hope Graeme Hick smashed 187 with 24 fours and eight sixes. Warne did not bowl in Worcestershire’s first innings, when the seamers bowled the team out for 90, but finished with 1-122 in the second from 23 overs after being monstered by Hick.

Warne in 2013: “I remember the Worcestershire game leading up to the first Test match, Allan Border told me, ‘Just bowl leg-breaks to Graeme Hick and a few of the guys in their side, because they could be big players in the Ashes. We don’t want them to see too much of you’.”

Border: “I wanted Warnie just to get his rhythm and get used to the Dukes ball. I wanted to underscore it is very different to the Kookaburra ball, so I just wanted him to really get used to bowling with it, just rolling his arm over. I didn’t have him on to get whacked all over the place, but I wanted him to have a good look at Hickey.

“He [Hick] got a hundred, so good on him, but we sort of worked out a couple of things for him in particular. He was a pretty good player of spin, but it was just a good education for wanting to not show everything to all and sundry. Wait for the right moments to release the beast. Warnie got a bit frustrated initially, but he understood as we went through it. The build-up to the first Test was great.”

Gatting: “We didn’t really know about him [Warne]. We heard he was on our trip and people started just looking at who he was. They played a match against Worcester and Hickey got a hundred, but AB told him to only bowl leg-breaks and not anything else, and to settle for getting whacked. AB repaid him by playing him in the first Test.

Mike Gatting congratulates Shane Warne for passing 600 Test wickets in 2005.Credit: Getty

“We had got some reports saying that he spun it. You could see his googly reasonably well, but you have to watch for the flipper, which is a very good ball, his top-spinner bounced a bit and his leg-break could turn quite a long way. So, when you think back to it, that’s about all we had. We didn’t see him bowl.”

Gooch: “In ’93 when I was captain, we knew that he played the year before. You’ve got to remember, this is in the era before the analyst systems. You might get the odd VHS tape, that’s all we would have had, a little bit of VHS recording off a TV program or TV coverage. So, you didn’t really have a lot of background knowledge.”

Warne died of a heart attack in Thailand on March 4 last year at the age of 52. Gooch, Hughes and a handful of other former teammates and opponents will gather for dinner in London midway through the Ashes series to celebrate his life and career.

Gooch: “I think even now most of us involved in the game can’t really get our head around that he’s not around. It’s really quite difficult.

“He’s an icon of the game, he made the game interesting, he lit it up. Like all geniuses, he had his frailties. I’ve got nothing but brilliant memories of playing against him. And also as a person, the things he did for people, the way he communicated with people, the way he would do things, be there and converse with people and making himself available. I’ve got nothing but great memories.

“As a player, I always wanted to challenge myself against the best, because I think you want to play sport at the highest level, obviously, to do well for your team. But part of the challenge is to play against the best. And for a couple of years when I played against him, that was a great challenge. I had some good moments, and he had plenty. It was a good way to see him for the first time, watch it from the non-striker’s end as they say.”

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