This Day That Year: When Shane Warne's 'Ball of the Century' Stunned Mike Gatting and Cricket World (Watch Video)
On this day 27 years ago, Shane Warne bowled ‘ball of the century’ to dismiss Mike Gatting during the first Test between Australia and England at the Old Trafford in Manchester. Warne was just 23-years-old and was playing his 13th Test. The spinner bowled a length delivery that landed wide of leg and spun back to hit off-stump, thus leaving Gatting and world cricket stunned.
On this day 27 years ago, on June 04, 1993, Shane Warne bowled ‘ball of the century’ to dismiss Mike Gatting during the first Test between Australia and England at the Old Trafford in Manchester. Warne was just 23-years-old and was playing his 13th Test. The spinner bowled a length delivery that landed wide of leg and spun back to hit off-stump, thus leaving Gatting and world cricket stunned. Gatting was regarded as one of the best players of spin in the England and Warne managed to bamboozle him. Shane Warne Snubs Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Kuldeep Yadav from His India XI, Picks Sourav Ganguly As All-Time Best Captain.
The delivery was rightly tagged ‘ball of the century’, and it helped Warne attain the stardom. In the first innings of the Test, the leg-spinner picked 4/51 including Gatting’s wicket and then scalped 4/86 in the second innings.
Warne recently recalled the media attention he received after the ‘ball of the century’. “I was 23 when that happened. I remember going to the Windmill Pub in London, we were staying at the Westbury Hotel 100 yards up the road ... and I went for a pint with Merv (Hughes). when I came out there was, without a word of a lie, probably 25-30 photographers just taking pictures,” the spinner revealed during an episode four of ‘A Week With Warnie’ on Fox Cricket. Shane Warne Recalls Media Frenzy During Time With Elizabeth Hurley, Says It Was Absolute Circus
WATCH: Shane Warne's Ball of the Century
“The next day was about ‘Shane Warne was at the pub’. I was getting critiqued about what I was wearing, I had ‘10 things you don’t know about Shane Warne’ and I’m reading it going, ‘that’s not true, I didn’t know that about me!’”
Warne, who retired from cricket in 2006, ended up picking 708 wickets in Tests and 293 in ODIs. He is second on the list of most wickets in Tests topped by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan (800 wickets).
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 04, 2020 10:57 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).