Shane Warne made his Ashes debut in 1993
It was also the debut of spin wizard Shane Warne as well. He helped Allan Border thrash the English team 4-1. And it all started on this day, 27 years ago, as Warne bowled the ‘ball of the century’ to dismiss Mike Gatting.
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Shane Warne had made his debut a year prior in Tests against India in his home country, getting thrashed for runs as Ravi Shastri and Sachin Tendulkar made merry. However, Border kept faith in his abilities and took him to England.
“We didn’t want to show England anything that we had this kid up our who we suspected could be the real deal. I was really excited about what I was seeing and what he potentially could bring to the table so I was keen to keep him under wraps,” Border was quoted as saying by foxsports.com.au.
Talking about the brilliant delivery from Warne to get rid of Gatting, Border said, “I was just happy Mike Gatting was out to the first ball from Warne. When we got into the huddle everyone was like ‘gee AB, that was a pretty special delivery’, I’m sort of ‘yeah yeah yeah, whoop-de-doo’. Then I saw the replay and went ‘wow’.
Watch the ball of the century by Warne here: