Noiicce , Shane !
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I started to become fascinated with Shane Warne following his remarkable performance in the Ashes this year when he almost retained the trophy for the Aussies single-handedly. Without his devastating leg breaks which repeatedly tortured the England top-order batsmen and his determined batting which frequently spared the blushes of the Australian middle order, I am convinced that England would have won the Series 4-1. Shane Warne's autobiography is interesting but not particularly revealing and it lacks the amount of amusing anecdotes one might have expected from a top sportsman's life story. I would have liked to have found out more about his early life and his married life , but a lot of the book concerned itself with details and statistics about long forgotten Test matches and accounts of his cricketing injuries. The book is at it's best when describing some of the more controversial and unfortunate events in Shane's life such as the Scott Muller incident, saucy extra-marital phone-sex, bag-snatching and sledging. He doesn't seem to have had much luck getting away with doing naughty or silly things over the years. I also enjoyed finding out more about the Australian Cricket team and the personalities and relationships that have made them such a powerful force over the past decade. Unfortunately this book is a little out of date and doesn't include recent scandal about drug-taking, more extra-marital sexual liaisons and the recent break-up of Shane's marriage. The book reveals that although Shane Warne may have made some ill advised choices in his personal life, his knowledge of strategy and tactics in cricket is excellent and it is a pity that non-cricket related matters prevented him from becoming captain of the Australian side. I think that he would have been exciting and imaginative in this role and there are plenty of positive suggestions and good ideas mentioned in the book by Shane . Shane Warne's autobiography is less for a mainstream market and more for a strictly cricket-following audience with its emphasis on match details ,statistics and esoteric remarks such as "In the mid-90's I gave Mushtaq my flipper and he showed me his wrong-un" , which may confuse ,if not startle, the less knowledgeable reader.
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Cricket Fans Only Need Apply!
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Though it pains me to say it, what with him being an Aussie, Warne is quite possibly the greatest cricketer of all time and certainly (as Wisden decided) one of the top five. As such, any cricket fan would bound to be interested in his autobiography. It is however a disappointment. Warne has always been colourful both on and off the field and a lot of his off-field antics have gained a great deal of publicity. In the book he attempts to explain away all of the situations he found himself in, whilst always attempting to show that nothing was his fault in any way. Put frankly he comes across as a whiner. The chapters about his early years and going to the accademy are interesting enough, though I would have enjoyed more detail be provided about how he developed his incredible action. The book starts to struggle towards the end and as mentioned previously turns into a torrent of feeble excuses that you would expect a schoolboy to trott out to a teacher.
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Of ego and ability
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A reasonably interesting book though hardly substantive and to put into perspective, by author who has not ever read a book. As most autobiographies of sporting greats of his fabric, its full of self glorification. The author's explanation of dispicable behaviour such as sledging gives us further insight of his grain. One particular subject which I found interesting was his scathing attack of Arjuna Ranatunga. It must be noted that it is Ranatunga who is credited with transformation of Sri Lankan cricket, which culminated with her victory at the World cup in 1996(no prizes for guessing who the losing finalists were). Ranatunga during the tournament had daringly claimed that Warne was full of hype (Warne ended wicketless against the Lankans for 58 runs in his 10 overs, including being clubbed for a six by Ranatunga himself!!!) Further, Ranatunga as we all know put his career in line and served a suspended ICC sentence in his fiery defence Muttiah Muralitharan in Australia. Its now apparent that Shane Warne will end his career behind Muttiah Muralitharan as the Greatest spin bowler of the game. Presently Warne has 491 wickets in 107 tests at nearly 26 runs per wicket, as against Muralitharan's 459 wickets in just 82 tests(25 tests less than Warne) at just over 23 and half runs per wicket. Muttiah Muralitharan has been named the greatest bowler in the history of the game by non other than Wisden. So had it not been for Ranatunga, would Australia have won the 1996 world cup and Warne been the greatest spinner of all time(as opposed to being the second best)? It no doubt appears that Mr Shane Warne firmly believes so.
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Some fascinating nuggets but for cricket fans only
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The world's greatest spin bowler he may be, but a great writer he certainly isn't. You wonder what was his ghost doing?
The book has two basic styles: the first is something like: "And then I took five wickets, and I was especially pleased with the flipper that took Fleming's off stump, and in the second test I got a few runs and we destroyed them in the final test, when, with six wickets, I certainly proved to Tugga I was back to my best."
The second comes through whenever he has to deal with controversy: "Well, you could say I am a bit blunt, but if a bloke won't return your calls when you want to sort it out, I don't think you can blame me for what happened."
Each time the whiff of controversy comes near, Warne airbrushes himself with barely a trace of apology. He sees himself not just as more sinned against than sinning but as hardly sinning at all.
This was written just before the drugs scandal, so Warne doesn't have to defend himself on that one, but there is the betting scandal, the remarks to other players, and the saucy phone calls, all of which he flatbats away.
But, then, let's be honest, this is pretty typical for sporting autobiographies, and it rather overlooks some of the great nuggets available here. Did you know about how a senior pro in the Australian team leads the singing of the Southern Cross at the end of a match? Or the fact that each player gives a mini-talk to the others about the history of Australia, the history of cricket or a subject of their choice (Warne chose gambling at a casino)?
These sorts of things help you realise how the Aussie team bond so brilliantly and reflect well on Waugh's captaincy.
And if you like cricket, even the run through of "Tests I have played in" is readable enough.
That said, some cricket books transcend their genre and have a value to the general reader. This isn't one of them.
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Needs another 200 pages to do it justice.
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Shane Warne is a cricketing legend but clearly never going to be a literary one. His autobiography is interesting but not as spectacular as it might have been given his stature in the game and the catalogue of controversy that has dogged his career. Instead you cant help but feel that there is a lack of detail here. Too much of the book reads like a list of statistics, "I took 5-47 in the first test, 6-70 in the 2nd and we won the series 2-0" (in fact WAY too much of the book reads like that ,but there's still enough here to keep a casual reader interested. A good read but as flawed as the man himself. Come back to hampshire soon, Shane!
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