I have to say I was more likely to watch it prior to seeing this clip, then again I’ve never been to a musical before and this is gaining good reviews so I suppose it’s a good one to see, when it comes to a real city. Eddie Perfect comes across as a bit of a knob, perhaps it’s a theatre thing..

He just loves cricket and sits on the couch next to me all day when there’s a Test Match on. Here he is with his favourite carboard cutout of The Ashes.

Here is Warnie with his favourite book, “Shane Warne: My Illustrated Career”. He’s never been one for books with too many words.

Howzatt!

Richie Beneaud: Shane Warne delivers his first ball in Ashes cricket. Right arm over the wicket, it’s a lovely flighted delivery from the young Victorian. Pitches well outside leg stump, but what’s this? Bounce, turn, it’s an absolute ripper of a ball let me tell you. Has really gripped the rough outside leg and it’s coming back a long long way, so much that it’s gone on and clipped the off bail! The English captain has a look of bemusement on his face and let me tell you, that’s a ball that will be replayed for many years to come.

Ian Botham: Mike Gatting to face the novice Australian here. Gatting looking well set as Warne bowls, oh that’s a rubbish delivery, what a waste. He’s just thrown it away, way down the leg side and Gatting pads up to let it pass through to the keeper without incide…. oh fúck ! Where the fúck did that come from? Bugger me, it’s come back and gone past the bat and pad to hit the stumps! Must have hit a bottle top or something. Gatting is standing his ground and rightly so. There’s no way that’s out, it just cannot be. Well, the umpire’s stuck the finger up so he’s got to go, unbelievable.

Captain and Coach

According to reports, the industrious big Kev had been working on third party sponsorship to fund his coup through talks with an unnamed wealthy businessman, and all that remained was for the board to approve the scheme.

KP’s old Hampshire captain Shane Warne was to be head coach, former Victorian captain Darren Berry his assistant, and former England all-rounder Jeremy Snape as team psychologist charged with managing KP’s ego. This of course the same coaching team that won the IPL last year, though Warney would be unlikely to qualify as Captain/Coach for England.

Unfortunately for Kevin, the wheels came off his master plan pretty quickly. It seems the board would like to be involved in the appointment of coaching staff. Perhaps they’d like to even speak to new candidates before their cowboy of a captain seals the deal on their behalf.

Also, there’s the problem that Warney is not interested in becoming the English and Welsh mentor, unless an offer was so “financially outrageous it would be impossible to refuse.”

All up there’s 8 votes this round, and the images are in the same order as the poll choices. You can hover your mouse over the pictures to see the names, and can also click the thumbnails for the full size and un-cropped picture to open in a new window.

Unauthorised Warney

Leg Break articulates nicely Warne’s frustration at this

An unauthorised film would be OK, even an unauthorised play.

But a fúcking musical??

That’s just gay.

Which got me thinking, Which products and services would benefit from the unauthorised use of Warney’s name?

• Shane Warne the Brothel
• Given Warne’s love for playboy undies (not only pictured in News of the World, Gilly also claims he took them along to Buchanan’s boot camp) playboy could release some undies with Warney’s head on them. A caption on the back could say “Bowled Shane”
• Shane Warne the Gigolo
• The Wiley Warney line of sèx toys
• Melbourne to improve it’s image reborn as Warnetown
• Winny Reds to be re-branded as Warney Reds
• The Warne academy for bowling and throwing, run by Scott Muller
• Merlin, the leg spinning machine the Poms built to overcome Warney (yep that worked) can now be called Shane
• Warney’s Dirty SexMS

Shane Warne - BnS Legend

I have spent the bulk of my cricket watching years observing Warne take apart all and sundry. His deception and mystery with the ball always amused me, his mastery of control both in the air and off the pitch, his ability to invent a new name for an old delivery every series, the mind games.. ah the mind games.

The man is so much more than the sum of his wickets. He polarises popular opinion in Australia, generally along the lines of gender. Womens magazines feed on his indiscretions, and I’ve boycotted many as a result. Here’s a comprehensive list of his misdemeanour’s including a Top 10.

Warney’s greatest achievement and one that all straight men aspire to, was getting a threesome with two hot chicks in the middle of a 1st class match, and going on to take 7/99. They even let him film it, then sold the footage to News of the World for cash and to promote their careers as Pommy and Kiwi slappers. Still, Warney in his playboy undies is a great image and one I’m sure he’ll be proud to show his grandson one day. It’s now immortalised in the Beer and Sport Banner.

While a test match century forever eluded him he could at times be brutal with the bat. I was at the Newport Arms when he got 99 against New Zealand and in typical Warney style wanted to bring up his maiden 100 with a 6. He holed out down cow corner to Daniel Vettori which surprised absolutely no-one. Turns out it was a front foot no-ball, though I have no doubt he would have found another way to miss the maiden ton regardless.

The 2005 Ashes for Shane Warne would have to go down as the greatest performance in a series of any cricketer in my lifetime. He took an incredible 40 Wickets at 19.92 which was 16 more than the next best bowler. What’s more he scored 249 runs at 27.66, and many of these came when all the batsmen failed. “His deliveries to remove Andrew Strauss at Edgbaston and Marcus Trescothick at The Oval defied logic and he can surely now make a justifiable claim to being the greatest bowler that has ever played the game.” [BBC]

Some inspirational words from the greatest site on the Internet, Nosedog’s Top Aussie Guide:

Shane Warne is a top Aussie. He is also a massive pisstank yobbo with a beer-gut who dyes his hair blonde and drives a red convertible. Warney has done some bad things. He once got paid 100 grand by Nicabate to give up durries for a year but he lit up heaps when he was pissed. Then he took money from some Indian bookmakers for pre-match information. He once smashed a camera cause a kiddy took a photo of his beer gut. Then he got toey on the phone and dirty-talked an English girly who wasn’t his wife. However, all Australians agree that Warney can be excused for doing these things cause he spin bowls like a genius and makes England look completely shíthouse. Warney could drink all our beer and then spew on our carpet and we wouldn’t care as long as he keeps taking wickets.
Warney is a top Aussie.

My best man took the piss out of me at my wedding as my Wireless router is called “Warney for King”, and my cat is named Warney. When it’s time for dinner and I call the cats in there’s no room for high pitched kitty kitty crap… instead it’s the familiar and drawn out “Waaarrrrnnnnnneeeeeyyyyy… Waaarrrrnnnnnneeeeeyyyyy…”

Inspired by Bryce McGain’s big comeback, I figure I’d jump the gun and start playing a few years younger than he did. So I headed down to North Shore Cricket Club for their net session on Tuesday.

You see I’ve been keeping my form up with beach cricket, a swing king and a lot of beers. Figured I could bowl a bit and was old enough to play for Australia.

My first ball came out backwards. No, not the back of the hand like Warney, I mean backwards, as in behind me and away from the batsman. It seems in my desire to deliver a full ball that I didn’t release it until the arm had gone over, and around, and down, and back again.

Next up came 3 or 4 wide beamers down leg. One even hit the side net before it got to the batsman. Needless to say I was impressing my future team mates with my control at this point.

I decided that my run up completely sucked, since we were using a discarded apple core to mark the back foot line. So I did my run up in reverse and marked out a purposeful 7 steps.

This made a huge difference as I could now actually run in without half stepping, allowing me to actually concentrate on bowling. I slowed it down a bit too, in the interests of landing on the pitch, and while it was still all over the show most of the balls could now be called legal deliveries.

After I’d been bowling for about 40 minutes my mate Tomm showed up, and I actually started to bowl half well, so much so that unlike everyone else there he didn’t know that I was complete shíte.

I started to pitch it up to the batsman at a reasonable medium pace and was thinking I should start bowling quicker now when Tomm who actually played last year informed me “That’s a pretty good ball. 6 of them would be a respectable over”.

Challenge Accepted. 6 of them. And you know what? 6 came out pretty well. The last one was a bit short and the batsman spanked it back down the track, however the nets have a back wall so you don’t have to run after it.

All up I bowled for around 90 minutes, at first in a rotation of 4, then 3, then the last 12 balls as the only bowler left.

Now I’m left with the pain, which starts in my left foot’s big toe and escallates through my body to the focal point of pain – the right shoulder. Breathing is laboured and laughing intensely painful. The pain spikes are the left bottom rig, right back shoulder blade, and right groin.

This post is bought to you by Nurofen Plus.

I thought I’d see how he compares to other champion Australian spinners, after one test. Of course it’s a pretty crappy comparison as it takes no account of the wicket, days they bowled, or quality of opposition.. nevertheless here are the great leggies on an arbitrary colour scale.

White Hot
Clarrie Grimmett 1925
31.3 overs, 5 maidens, 11/82
Average: 7.45
Economy: 2.6 rpo
Strike Rate: 22.8

Red
Jack Iverson 1950
13 overs, 3 maidens, 4/43
Average: 10.75
Economy: 3.3
Strike Rate: 26

Orange
Doug Ring 1948
41 overs, 9 maidens, 6/120
Average: 20
Economy: 2.9 rpo
Strike Rate: 54.6

Cream
Richie Benaud 1952
4.3 overs, 0 maidens, 1/14
Average: 14
Economy: 3.2 rpo
Strike Rate: 14

Bone
Stuart Macgill 1998
36 overs, 8 maidens, 5/134
Average: 26.8
Economy: 3.72 rpo
Strike Rate: 43.2

Off-White
Bill O’Reilly 1932
81.4 overs, 23 maidens, 4/155
Average: 38.75
Economy: 1.9 rpo
Strike Rate: 122.5

White
Beau Casson 2008
32 overs, 4 maidens, 3/129
Average: 43
Economy: 4.03 rpo
Strike Rate: 64

Ivory
Terry Jenner 1970
28.6 overs, 7 maidens, 2/95
Average: 47.5
Economy: 3.3
Strike Rate: 115

Beige
Shane Warne 1992
45 overs, 7 maidens, 1/150
Average: 150
Economy: 3.33 rpo
Strike Rate: 27

Transparent
Kerry O’Keefe 1970
50 overs, 14 maidens, 0/116
Average: -
Economy: 2.32
Strike Rate: -

The greatest bowler of all time has to give way to a freaking tram. Seriously, get your priorities right. When Warney comes to Sydney he gets a police escort so needn’t worry about stopping for traffic lights, trams, trains, busses or even pedestrians.

One day I’m going to circumnavigate Australia while taking a clear path around Melbourne. That’d be sweeeet.