Shane Warne describes how ‘ball of the century’ changed his life

Shane Warne admitted in an interview that his life changed after that ball as he became a constant figure for the media to hound.

Shane Warne is one of the most enigmatic characters in the history of cricket. He has had an equal amount of talent and charisma to enthral the audience with his wicket-taking ability and unique personality. Warne, despite being a great bowler, was always controversy’s favourite child. He is the second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket while also missing a lot of action due to various issues. Warne was banned in 2003 for doping and had to miss the World Cup due to that.

Shane Warne celebrates after his ‘ball of the century’ (Twitter)

The myth of Warne started in 1993 where he bowled the ‘ball of the century’ against England and bamboozled Mike Gatting. However, the success gained after that had a negative impact. Warne admitted in an interview that his life changed after that ball as he became a constant figure for the media to hound.

“I was 23 when that happened. I remember going to the Windmill Pub in London, we were staying at the Westbury Hotel 100 yards up the road ... and I went for a pint with Merv (Hughes),” he said..

“And when I came out there was, without a word of a lie, probably 25-30 photographers just taking pictures. The next day was about ‘Shane Warne was at the pub’. I was getting critiqued about what I was wearing, I had ‘10 things you don’t know about Shane Warne’ and I’m reading it going, ‘that’s not true, I didn’t know that about me!’” The 50-year-old talked about his past controversies in episode four of ‘A Week With Warnie’ on Fox Cricket.

Warne went on to say he did not understand how the media handled stories about him, which were often untrue.

“I didn’t really understand how it worked when I had to read these things about myself that weren’t true which was quite tough to take,” he says.

“You don’t want to spend your life worrying about that stuff, but I did. I worried. I was like, ‘that’s not what I’m like’. So I found that I didn’t understand how it (the media) worked and I resented it.” He admitted that he behaved in “a sort of arrogant, pretty ordinary fashion all the time.”

“I live in the moment so sometimes you don’t think about the consequences and that was probably most of my trouble. I didn’t think what the consequences were or what effect it would have on other people.

“It was a selfish thing. I did what I wanted to do, and that got me into a bit of trouble,” Warne said.