The story of Shane Warne’s debut Ashes series is usually told in one ball. It has its own Wikipedia page, its own song (Jiggery Pokery by the Duckworth Lewis Method) and its own mythology. But while the theatre and symbolism of that delivery to Mike Gatting are unimprovable, the full story of Warne’s 1993 Ashes is a little more Homeric. It is told in 2,639 deliveries – the most ever bowled in a Test series, during which he made himself at home in England’s subconscious.
If the ‘Ball of the Century’ was a killer lead single, the album that followed was full of subtler classics. It revealed a bit more with each listen: variety, intelligence, aura and much else besides. Some mystery spinners are one-hit wonders; by the end of the 1993