5 most famous deliveries bowled by Shane Warne

Shane Warne was one of the most brilliant cricketing minds and is widely considered the best spinner of all time. When he bowled, everyone paid attention. Even after all these years, some of his magical deliveries still are fresh in the minds of fans who witnessed them live.Here’s a collection of the 5 most famous deliveries bowled by Warne:

#5 Graham Gooch, Egdbaston 1993

Warne on the dismissal: “I reckoned that I can get him around his legs. It is a bit of a plan, but not too many plans come off.”

Great deliveries are often required to send back great players, and the Australian certainly provided one against Graham Gooch at Brimigham in 1993. The batsman had already scored a couple of hundreds in the series and was looking to leave one that was pitched well outside the leg stump and deliveried from around the wicket, only to see his stumps rattled.

The Englishman even exhibited a little forward movement to arrest the threat of spin but the ball went behind his legs to strike the stumps.

#4 Herschelle Gibbs, Edgbaston 1999

The 1999 World Cup semifinal involving Australia and South Africa at Edgbaston might be more famous for Lance Klusener’s heroic innings and South Africa’s bad luck. But everyone will acknowledge that it was Warne who was the wrecker-in-chief of the South African batting order, turning the match on its head when things appeared to go out of hand.

A mighty leg-break from Warne left Gibbs bemused and shell-shocked; the South African was bowled by a beauty that pitched outside the leg stump and spun back to take out the top of off. That moment of magic completely changed the course of the game as Warne reduced South Africa from 48/0 to 53/3 in their chase of 213.

#3 Andrew Strauss, Melbourne 2006

The Aussie became the first bowler ever in the history of Test cricket to reach 700 Test wickets when he cleaned up Andrew Strauss fair and square off a full length ball from over the wicket. The landmark came in the 4th Test of the 2006/07 Ashes series Down Under, and it’s no wonder he was excited as he entered the record books with the help of a classic leg-break.

Strauss was fooled by the tossed up delivery and came down the track only to make connection with thin air. The ball sneaked in between the bat and pad to hit the woodwork that set Warne off on his celebratory run.

#2 Andrew Strauss, Edgbaston 2005

It was the last over of the second day and England had already extended their lead to 124 in the second innings when Warne produced a wicket out of nowhere. The ball landed well outside the off stump and like many other batsmen, Strauss was not interested in committing to the shot on the last over of the day and was simply looking to pad it away.

The poor Englishman should have been aware of the turn the talented spinner could generate based on his first delivery, but he didn’t make the necessary adjustment. And he paid the price for that as he moved away from the line in his bid to ‘keep out’ the ball that turned in sharply after pitching. Strauss had to leave the field red-faced after the ball disturbed the stumps to get him out bowled.

#1 Mike Gatting, Manchester 1993

“A bit nervous first time against England, what will have to do here is, just bowl a nice leg break that hopefully lands somewhere in the mark and can turn:”

That is how Warne described the way he felt before delivering the ball.

His very first delivery against Ashes rivals was recognised as the ‘ball of the century’, as he stunned Mike Gatting with a loopy vicious leg-spinner. The ball was tossed up from over the wicket to the right hander, landed outside the leg stump and zipped past the outside edge and hit the top of off. Absolute dream stuff!

A helpless Gatting couldn’t possibly have had any indication that the ball would spin back that much, as it pitched nearly on the fifth or sixth stump. “The perfect delivery”, it’s quite correctly called.