Shane Warne is a name on everyone’s lips each summer, usually the lips are saying “Why won’t Shane Warne shut the f–k up”, but still he is one of the most broadcasted people in Cricket through his stellar career and position on Fox Cricket.
His views polarise people, from “That’s almost Interesting” to “OK, Shane Warne is at it again” to “Oh For F–k’s Sake, we get it, you played Test Cricket”.
And his views, and the various reaction to them on social media is absolute fodder for Fox Sports affiliated products, desperately looking for content in Summer with a one sided Test series, a lack of NRL players getting in trouble and News Corp in general looking to deflect from the clusterf–k that is Covid in Australia.
But he rates. His presence is undeniable during summer. And he seems to be an important part of the summer of cricket. But who does he think is an equally important person in cricket. An authority that commands as much respect and attention as Shane Warne himself.
So to cash in on his popularity or notoriety, we recently discussed cricket with him in the urinal of Crown Casino and he confided his Five Most Important People In Cricket.
1 – SHANE WARNE
“When it comes to bowling, how can you look past the greatest bowler in history. The man who delivered the Ball of the Century”.
He does have a point when it comes to spin bowling, few would argue, but what about fast bowling we thought. So we asked what he thought about fast bowling as an important person in cricket.
He replied “F–k Mitchell Starc.”
2. SHANE WARNE
He didn’t stop there. He then suggested another important voice when it comes to batting.
“Well you don’t need to score a century to know heaps about batting.”.
We then thought, oh god, here it comes again.
“Did you know I scored 99 in a test and was caught off a no ball?”
We nodded politely as we were keen to hear his other three most important people in cricket. Although we think we had worked out the pattern.
“I know heaps about batting, and couldn’t work out why others didn’t rate my batting as highly as I did. And do.”
3. SHANE WARNE
“And you don’t have to be an Australian captain for a lifetime to know how to run a game.”
“Although there was a conspiracy around why I was never made captain, I beleive the cricket world still respected my brain.”
“I’ve captained my country, county sides, state side, and Big Bash sides. And been a leader in all my teams. Who else could boast such a record.”
Without wanting to hurt his feelings, we pointed to the recent Fourth Ashes test in Sydney where he banged on about bowling Marnus Labuschagne in those final overs instead of Steve Smith. Where he kept saying I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong in a similar style to the equally loud mouthed authority Gus Gold from NRL.
“Oh, piss off. Marnus would have taken two wickets and won the game, but what would I know. Who listens to me….”
4. SHANE WARNE
At number four is Shane Warne again. At this stage we had stopped wondering if Shane Warne was going to take all five slots.
This time he’s talking himself up as a selector.
“I can boldly claim, that Australia would have won this series 5-0 if I was the selector”.
Bold claim. Especially when he was bagging Mitchell Starc before the Ashes Series and suggested Mitch Marsh for Usman Khawaja in the most recent test before he went on to make two hundreds.
We then cheekily asked him about his blow up on social media with Sheffield Shield star Chadd Sayers recently about the Sydney Test.
“Chadd Sayers is the Rice Cakes Equivalent of Cricketers”.
5. SHANE WARNE
Finally, and predictably, Shane Warne declared himself the fifth most important person in cricket according to himself.
This time the focus was on the fun side of the game.
“And finally, today’s sportspeople are so vanilla. Boring as f–k.”
“Look at me back in my heyday, with my Wicket Dancing, a few casual darts and beers, laughs, sledges.”
“And I’ve brought that fun to Fox Cricket. Spending half of the coverage talking about the good times I had, and sharing laughs with the one person in the commentary box who was there, and ignoring that none of the audience were there or care about our in joke”.
He smiled to himself, and chuckled quietly remembering another thing that had happened to him from back in the day.
We left him at that point, having worn out our welcome, and it was also strange we were talking to a man in the urinal despite not actually going to the toilet.
