The spell that turned it for Shane Warne!

Two Australian and world cricket legendsmdashRodney Marsh and Shane Warnemdashcalling stumps on the same day is a tragic coincidenceThat they both spent some time with each other as teacher and pupil respectively many years ago at the Australian Cricket Academy in Adelaide the city where Marsh passed away on Friday is another coincidence And if the cause of Warnersquos death is a heart attack there will be another one since Marsh suffered a heart attack as well earlier in the weekThere is yet another one Both started their Test careers on a wrong note Marsh kept wickets poorly on his Test debut against England at Brisbane in 1970 and thus was called Iron Gloves while Warne was smashed by double centurion Ravi Shastri in the Sydney Test of the 199192 series to end up with figures of 1150Low on confidenceWhen Warne got picked for the Sri Lanka tour later that yearmdashhis first after that Sydney shellackingmdashhe didnrsquot believe he belonged to Test cricket didnrsquot deserve his place in the team Seven Augusts later he spoke to midday At Sri Lankarsquos paradise town Galle I waited for hours for Warne to agree to our interview request made through Australiarsquos team manager Steve Bernard He walked down the pavilion steps and appeared happy to speak His wife had given birth to their son Jackson and Warne told midday ldquoJackson did the trick pulled him out of his gloom There are not too many happier men than me at the momentrdquo he saidLankan challenges in 1999We spoke about what kind of challenges the forthcoming tournament in Sri Lanka would throw up ldquoI am fitter now and I donrsquot feel threatened by anyonerdquo he said Sachin Tendulkar was part of the Indian team and he hoped hersquod get him out for ldquo50 rather than 100rdquo whenever they clashed Sri Lanka was a special place for him and it was there where he started believing that he could be a performer if not the worldrsquos best spinner of all time The opening Test of the 199293 series was at the SSC ground in Colombo Warnersquos first innings figures were 0107 The Lankans were chasing a target of 181 to go one up on Day Five On the night of the penultimate day Warne was nervous Fellow spinner Greg Matthews believed his young mate would benefit from a chat over pizza at the Colombo Hilton ldquoSpin it give it a rip tomorrowrdquo Warne was told ldquoI donrsquot think I am good enoughrdquo said Warne Matthews responded by saying that the selectors wouldnrsquot have picked him for the tour had they believed he couldnrsquot deliver Warne went to bed unconvinced A seesaw battle ensued the following day and when Allan Border threw the ball to Warne Matthews yelled ldquoRemember last night Shane spin it spin it give it a riprdquoThat talk over pizzaWarne claimed the last three Sri Lanka wickets and his ultimate analysis of 311 looked far better than that debut 1150 Australia won the game by 16 runs ldquoYeah I canrsquot forget that talk over the pizza that night It was a special night and things took off from thererdquo he told us in GalleWarne loved his paradise destinations From Thailand he tweeted his tribute ldquoSad to hear the news that Rod Marsh has passed He was a legend of our great game amp an inspiration to so many young boys amp girls Rod cared deeply about cricket amp gave so muchespecially to Australia amp England players Sending lots amp lots of love to Ros amp the family RIP materdquo to MarshThe legends team up there have now been strengthened by the finest wicketkeeper and spinner Indeed itrsquos two too many on one day