On this day: Shane Warne bowls 'ball of the century'

By Liam Apicella, Features Editor | 04 June 2013

On June 4, 1993, Shane Warne announced himself in Test cricket with one of the most memorable deliveries that the sport has ever seen.

It was the delivery that probably still has Mike Gatting waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, even 20 years on.

Little was known of Shane Warne when he was given the ball for the first time in an Ashes series at Old Trafford. In all honesty, England hadn't even expected him to play. Coach David Lloyd had gone as far as saying that it would be a waste of time playing a wrist-spinner on the Lancashire pitch.

However, bowling from the Warwick Road End, a 22-year-old Warne with bright blonde hair and only 11 Tests under his belt wrote himself into cricketing folklore.

As the ball headed down the wicket, Gatting, arguably England's finest player of spin, planted his left boot firmly with the intention of patting it down the on-side. It's a routine shot, but within a second the ball had gripped the track and a confused Gatting turned to see his bails on the floor.

Commentating at the time, Richie Benaud famously said: "Gatting has absolutely no idea what has happened to him and he still doesn't know."

Meanwhile, these quotes from Gatting back up the fact that England were painfully unaware of the ability that Warne possessed in that right wrist of his: "We'd seen a few bits and pieces of him but nothing special. We thought we'd have a look at him, see what he's about and what he could do, but it was a remarkable delivery.

"There are people who think I should have padded it away but I never tried to lunge at a spinner. I was more worried about being bowled around the back of my legs. The captain, Graham Gooch, was down the other end. When we talked about it, he said I needn't have worried about that because my backside was too big for the ball to get past, so it wasn't very sympathetic!

"I had most of it covered and had ensured it would not get round the back of my legs and if it did anything else, I was in the right position to react, but it spun quickly as well as a long way. It was a leg break and I knew he had put a lot of revs on it and we knew the wicket might turn, but not that much."

Amazingly, though, Warne does not rate that as his best wicket. His favourite is this ball to Shivnarine Chanderpaul of the West Indies.