By Tim Wigmore
As a player and a commentator, Shane Warne has been a feature of Boxing Day Tests at the MCG for the past 30 years. As a fan, he started watching them a decade earlier.
The Boxing Day Test was the scene of Warne’s Test hat-trick and his 700th wicket: both, naturally, against England. This year, Warne will tragically be absent from his home-town Test against South Africa. Yet, in the first Boxing Day Test since his death, Warne’s life will be celebrated, with players wearing his trademark floppy hats and his Test cap number, 350, painted square of the wicket.
Among those attending will be Jason Warne, Shane’s younger brother.
“There are going to be emotions, but a lot of that was earlier,” Jason says. “Now it’s getting to that stage where it’s more about celebrating him and remembering all the good parts of him.”
Jason and Shane first watched cricket at the MCG during the Ashes Test of 1982. The fifth day loomed, with Australia nine wickets down in their second innings; Allan Border and Jeff Thomson needed another 37 runs to win and secure the Ashes. It could have been over in one ball, but the Warne boys – Shane 13 and Jason 11 – caught the train to the MCG. They took their seats behind the bowler’s arm in the front row of the Southern Stand, cheering Border and Thomson on as they took Australia within one blow of glory before Ian Botham snared Thomson, caught – at the second attempt – in the slips to give England a three-run victory.
From this year, the Southern Stand has a different name: the Shane Warne Stand. “It’s pretty cool having his stand here,” Jason reflects.
Shane Warne at the Boxing Day Test in 2006. Inset: Brother Jason Warne.Credit:Vince Caligiuri, Eddie Jim
As boys, Shane and Jason were used to Test matches: the games they played in the driveway of their home.
“We had a lot of fun picking our world XI teams, and having to imitate them – bat left-handed if they were left-handed, bowl whatever they bowled and try and do their action.”
Shane “loved going off waiting for the roads to clear and coming off the other side of the road doing a big Bobby Willis, his run-up”. But there were also glimpses of the cricketer that he would become: in his World XI teams, Shane liked to pick a pair of leg-spinners. “He used to pick Jimmy Higgs and Abdul Qadir just so he could bowl leg-spin.”
Whether it was Australian rules football, tennis or squash, the fraternal rivalry remained the same. “Anyone that knows Shane would say just how competitive he is at everything,” Jason laughs. “Monopoly actually drew some anger.”
Both brothers’ first love was Australian rules. Shane was a talented enough player to represent his beloved St Kilda at under-19 and reserve level. Ultimately, he was released, Jason believes, because he wasn’t tall enough. “That’s one of the brutalities of sport.”
Making it as an Australian rules player seemed far more realistic than making it as a professional cricketer; there were simply far more slots. Yet while his St Kilda dream was dying, Shane’s cricket developed rapidly. Jason observed a transformation after Shane spent the English summer of 1989 – the year he turned 20 – playing for Imperial Cricket Club in Bristol. It was not just that Shane returned to Australia a little more rotund, after spending ample time frequenting pubs; he also came back with better control.
“He went from playing district thirds to district ones when he got back, and by the next winter he was at the cricket academy.”
The Shane Warne Stand at the MCG.Credit:Eddie Jim
Shane’s stint at the Australian cricket academy in Adelaide was short; he was sent home for ill-discipline. But he returned from Adelaide with a new knowledge of how to bowl the “flipper”, which went straight on to cut batters in two. At home, Jason recalls, “he showed us how to bowl the flipper – we were on our knees in the hallway, trying to bowl a flipper to each other”.
Even as Shane took his first steps in the professional game, the brothers’ tradition of attending the Boxing Test together remained.
“I remember going to the Boxing Day Test in 1991,” Jason says, “sitting way back up in the nosebleeds, eating pies and drinking beer. And he said to me, ‘I could be playing the next Test’. I just laughed and said, ‘Sure mate, whatever’.”
Shane was right: after just a handful of Sheffield Shield matches, he made his Test debut against India at the SCG. Back at the MCG for the 1992 Boxing Day Test, Warne announced his talents by taking seven for 52 to bowl Australia to victory against the West Indies: a prelude to what he would produce in England six months later.
When Shane delivered the ball of the century at Old Trafford, Jason was in Manchester, too. Only, he was not at the ground.
“I was driving a courier van in Salford Quays at the time and listening to it on the radio. I didn’t think he was going to bowl before lunch, so I thought I’d work the morning, go down at lunch.” The plan swiftly changed: “I radioed into the office and said I was done.”
Back home after their English sojourn – Jason worked and travelled around Europe while catching parts of five Ashes Tests – the brothers swiftly learnt that things would never be the same.
“I remember we went to the pub to watch a Mike Tyson fight – just as we did,” Jason remembers. “We were in the pub for an hour and a half, I got to say two words to him because there’s a couple of thousand people there who all just want to say hello. And he would say hello to everyone and everyone thinks, ‘I’m only saying hello, it’ll only take two seconds’ but when you’ve got 2000 people all taking two seconds, there goes an hour or two.
“But at the same time, he didn’t begrudge it. A big thing for him is he remembered being a kid and he had his autograph book. He actually had all his favourite sportsmen’s autographs and he used to practise doing their autographs. So he was that fanboy himself. Once he became the star, there was no way he wasn’t going to give back what he cherished so much.”
Shane Warne is given a standing ovation after claiming his 700th Test wicket at the MCG on Boxing Day, 2006.Credit:Wayne Taylor
Yet Shane was not quite braced for what his game would bring. No one could be.
“The amount he was under focus, I don’t think had been experienced before. So, I don’t think he could have been prepared. I think, through his career in general, he got better with it.”
In a more subtle way, life changed for Jason, too. He grew accustomed to constantly seeing his brother on TV, or being discussed in Melbourne bars. “They’re talking about your brother and they’re nowhere near the truth.”
Once, sick of Shane being discussed inaccurately, Jason even interrupted a nearby table. Shane’s fame even impacted how much Jason could discuss his brother with his own friends.
“You need to be really careful what you say to your own mates. The relationship is a little bit different to your mates’ relationship to their brothers, because he’s away a lot. Everything’s in the public eye.
“It was a bit weird to start with. But one thing that doesn’t change all the way through is just how proud you are of him.
“Anyone who plays sport goes to bed dreaming of being the one in control of a big game at that big moment and delivering and the adulation. And it’s probably only once you start to get it a couple of times, it is a little bit addictive, too. He loved that. But I think in a perfect world he’d say, ‘I love it on the ground, but not when I’m living my private life’.”
While as children the Warne brothers bonded on the sports field, in adult life they bonded over poker, keeping up a regular card school.
“Shane played a lot more than me. So, I’m happy to admit that he was better than me. But the way I did have him is I knew he just didn’t want me to beat him,” Jason laughs. “Whenever I had a good hand, I could just put him on because I know ,‘You’ll call me’.”
Even as their lives took very different paths, the brothers remained close; Jason acted as Shane’s manager for several years. During this period, Shane encountered one of the biggest crises of his career, when he was suspended in 2003 for taking a banned diuretic.
“Everyone knows it’s hard to take advice from your brother,” Jason chuckles. “I said to him right at the start of his suspension, ‘Just don’t touch the ball. Go away, let your body actually heal’.
“I said, ‘If you do it right, you’ll get two or three years extra at the end that you wouldn’t otherwise get. So you’ll actually get to play more cricket’.”
Shane would break the habit of a lifetime and listen to his brother: after his return, aged 34, he took 217 Test wickets at 24.75 apiece.
Naturally, Shane was never shy about giving advice himself. “Every day,” Jason smiles. “It’s Shane advice.”
And so, while the cricketing world will mourn a legend on Boxing Day, Jason will be remembering Shane as his big brother.
“We loved winding each other up and knew which buttons to push. But underneath it all, we just wanted the best for each other.”
The Telegraph, London
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