Shane Warne: He Took The World For A Spin And The World Loved Him Back

The 163 gram red cherry was Shane Warne's muse. The 22-yard strip was his canvas and that supple yet strong right wrist was a paint brush. It was all that he needed to create not just art but moments of pure magic that built a connect transcending all cricket boundaries, a love affair that had you, me, John Doe and Jane Doe in his grip. It was a love story beyond cricket field, in life and now in his death. Gone too soon at 52, he was an artist and the cricket world was a connoisseur of his art form, which was dying till he breathed life into it much like a magician who decided to caste his spell on a generation for a decade and half.

Mike Gatting was embarrassed, Daryl Cullinan was bamboozled and Herschelle Gibbs was left in a daze during all those years when Warne took the cricket world for a spin.

On March 4, it just spun out of control and left everyone shattered.

But then life of geniuses, like their art, is unpredictable. It could be beautiful one moment and brutal the other.

Leg-spin is a difficult art to pursue and even more difficult to fall in love with.

Richie Benaud, in the 1960s, was more precise and Abdul Qadir, with all his theatrics at bowling mark, was entertainment.

But Warne was like that Pied Piper of Hamelin, who left you mesmerised and before you knew, you were a part of his journey.

He wasn't a perfect role model off the 22 yards. But there is a magnetic charm about flawed characters. Their imperfections make them even more endearing and desirable. They make life live.

They surprise life and life surprises them.

May be one can borrow Gideon Haigh's lines to describe him "Warne was no more to be considered simply a bowler than Marilyn Monroe was to be deemed merely as an actress." When Ravi Shastri