Off the ball: Warne deserves a worthy swansong

By WYNNE GRAY

It is not easy to want the Aussies to do well, not unless they are playing England.

Yet it would be churlish not to applaud the way they have played their cricket in recent times, reintroducing a richness of performance to the test and one-day arenas.

Among a swag of key performers has been Shane Warne, the blond leg-spinner, the Sheikh of Tweak, whose success helped to break the wearisome reliance on pace which the West Indies brought to the international scene.

If Warne's dodgy right shoulder holds out, he wants to have a few more seasons in test cricket. To help ensure that, he is quitting one-day cricket after the World Cup.

I hope he has a worthy swansong, much as I hope he, Daniel Vettori and other spinners get a decent gallop in southern Africa.

Warne has been one of a rare group of bowlers in the past decade who has demanded our attention. He is compelling as a master of his craft, and as a showman.

Express bowlers such as Wasim Akram, Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar fire our interest, too, but there is not a huge amount for the commentators to explain - speed, pace and velocity are their trademark.

But with Warne it has been his variety of delivery, his extraordinary accuracy and ability to pursue his victims which have mesmerised us.

It can be difficult to comprehend how slow bowling can be so lethal, and there lies his fascination.

All that guile, flight and diversity of delivery is also a boon to a broadcaster such as former leggie Richie Benaud, who can guide us through the intricacies of Warne's armoury.

Warne's success has endorsed the merits of spin bowling, to the extent that international attacks now pick spinners as a necessity rather than a concession.

Men like Vettori, Saqlain Mustaq, Harbhajan Singh and Muttiah Muralitharan are as deadly as the quicks.

You wonder how good Bill O'Reilly and Clarrie Grimmett must have been as leg-spinners when Sir Donald Bradman, the world's greatest batsman and an Australian selector for decades, nominated that pair ahead of Warne in his best World XI.

They must have been something else, especially as Bradman made his choice despite his consistent differences of opinion with O'Reilly.

"He [O'Reilly] was the greatest bowler that I ever faced or saw," Bradman said.

Some praise considering Bradman played against, watched and selected a swag of bowling greats such as Ray Lindwall, Dennis Lillee, Sir Richard Hadlee, Malcolm Marshall, Alec Bedser, Harold Larwood and Akram.

In making his choice of O'Reilly and Grimmett three years ago, Bradman suggested that duo and Warne were the three best spinners he had seen.

Warne, he said, was the best leg-spinner he had seen in the past 50 years.

That assessment from the master batsman makes me feel even more privileged to have seen Warne live and on television, a pleasure I hope carries on past his one-day international retirement.