The Ball of the Century: Mike Gatting remembers that Shane Warne delivery “was a bit too good for me”

Shane Warne, a bowler whose extraordinary talents left countless slack-jawed batsmen questioning the laws of cricketing physics, has died after a career which saw him crowned as one of his sport’s greatest ever players.

The ebullient Australian master of leg spin, whose haul of 708 Test wickets was the second highest of all time, was found unresponsive by friends on Friday at his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui after suffering a suspected heart attack. He was 52.

His premature death drew tributes from teammates and opponents alike to a man credited with reviving the craft of leg spin and in so doing saving cricket from an era of muscular but monotonous dominance by fast bowlers.

Among those to remember Warne, a father-of-three who among a hatful of records took the most wickets – 195 – in Ashes history, was the BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew. He said: “Spinning was a dying art, really, till Shane Warne came along.”

Despite many thousands of deliveries produced in an illustrious 15-year international career and significantly longer as a professional player, it is for his very first ball in his first Ashes Test in 1993 that he will be best remembered.

Dubbed “the Ball of the Century”, the delivery by a hitherto unknown Warne – noteworthy at the point only for his Antipodean shock of bleached blond hair – left England’s Mike Gatting in a state of famous incredulity. The batsman reluctantly trudged back to the pavilion after watching, but not quite believing, the ball from Warne bounce at a ludicrous 45 degree angle across his body and remove his off bail.

Richie Benaud, the Australian commentator working for the BBC, who appeared as stunned by the delivery as the England player, said: “Gatting has