On a January night during the 11 pm slot in 1992, cricket followers in India watched a young, overweight and blonde-haired Shane Warne for the first time in action on Doordarshan‘s Test Match highlights. It used to be a 30-minute package in times when cable television was yet to make inroads into the country, and the public broadcaster didn’t provide live coverage of overseas Test series (except the 1989 Pakistan tour).
That night one saw a 22-year-old Warne making his international debut at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the third Test Match of the series against the Indian team. Warne came across as a deer caught in the headlights — he was listless, ineffective and was clobbered by Indians to end up with figures of 150 for 1 in the 45 overs he bowled. These weren’t figures that could foretell the unprecedented heights of greatness in spin bowling that he was going to scale in years to come. The rip he gave to the ball, and nothing else — neither the variations nor the plan nor his action — had some signs of talent waiting to bloom.
