Dear Mr. Warne,
You may dislike the formality of that address and insist on being called "Shane". Alternately, being the old-school guy Gideon Haigh described, you may approve of the respect. Either way, it'd be on your terms. Almost everything involving you was.
Was. I use that word in disbelief. It's futile to reconcile with the fact that you are now of the past. You were such an important part of my youth; what still seems like my cricketing present. So, your death feels unfair. As if you turned a part of my cricketing memories from colour to black-and-white. A final unplayable delivery, sir.
No author, family or friend; ultimately only you truthfully know what special compass guided such a remarkable life. To a shy, self-conscious, self-doubting, self-loathing guy like me, you were an irreconcilable meteor in cricket's night sky. Burning brighter and more intensely than any other celestial body (some of the things you did indeed seemed godlike) and unlikely to fizzle out and quietly spend your elder days on display in a museum. No, if anything, we should all have known there would be nothing ordinary about your death. Maybe you'd have preferred to go surrounded by loved ones, and not alone in a country far from home. We will never know.
I was inspired to bowl legspin by your Indian contemporary. But, I learned the technique from an old instruction manual by your coach, pouring over the various finger and wrist positions on those pages, imagining the way you'd do it. I tried them all on the field, only to have to accept that my hands and wrists were too puny. Later, I read about just how abnormally large and strong your hands were and felt my failures could be forgiven.
Yet, anytime I managed to pull of a perfectly languid drifting, looping delivery that completely foxed the batsman, it felt like dismissing the bugger with your benediction. As if there was a mental radio channel only legspinners were always tuned to where we cheered each other on.
You eventually did captain, lead and inspire a team because many people across the world wanted to be you on the field or were on your side. You turned cricket into a version of chess that chess itself would sacrifice a pawn to be. The off-field shenanigans were ridiculous, dramatic and somewhat disturbing but you played life's inning on your own terms. It's something very few of us have the courage to do.
Today, we all know what that 99 felt like. A moment and a life unfulfilled. As you return to that great pavilion in the sky, I hope there's peace in knowing that you clean-bowled this heart of mine. Maybe all of ours. You played the game and won it well. If life had a man-of-the-series prize, I think you were a worthy winner.
Song for the moment: Lazarus - David Bowie
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