Mike Hussey: Why Shane Warne’s passing feels like we’ve lost a family member

And when the news first came through that Shane Warne had passed away, I froze.

I didn’t know what to say, what to think, how to react.

When Amy asked me how I was feeling, I didn’t have a response.

I was just … numb.

I stayed that way for quite a while.

Some time has passed now and I’ve tried to collect my thoughts ahead of his public service in Melbourne.

There is still a part of me that doesn’t believe we’ve lost him, but every day there is a reminder somewhere, particularly over here in India at the IPL; a country that worshipped him and a tournament that took his global fame and notoriety to another level.

SPECIAL TRIBUTES: MacGill: Living in Shane Warne’s shadow | Lyon: Best advice I got from Warnie | Smith: How Warnie changed my cricket destiny

When people here discuss Warnie’s memory with me, they employ the kind of language you might use when mourning the loss of a family member.

It’s a personal pain.

I think a lot of us feel that way.

Warnie was so many things to so many people.

Even if you didn’t know him, it felt like you did, because he was always on your TV screen, in your social media feed, across your newspapers, and has been for decades.

So let me share a few memories and thoughts about the Warnie I knew – and will greatly miss.

Fifth ball, flipper, LBW

Our relationship didn’t get off to the best of starts.

We had a few run-ins playing Sheffield Shield. He was a great competitor for Victoria and I was fighting hard for Western Australia and that sent us both on something of a collision course.

I quickly learned he could get you out through the air, off the pitch and between your ears.

It would generally start with Warnie and Darren Berry talking to each other about you, but seldom at you, on various themes but all with the same thread: that you weren’t worthy of being on the same field as them. Standard stuff. But that was just the start of the mind games.

I remember Warnie bowling to Murray Goodwin once in a Shield match. He bowled a short ball outside off stump and Goodwin cut him hard for four. I watched Shane very closely. He was standing at the top of his mark, apparently angry with himself, and saying out loud, “Get it up in the air, Shane, bowl it fuller!”

And I thought to myself, “He’s going to bowl the flipper here.”

Sure enough, the next ball was the flipper. LBW.

A trap conceived, set and executed to perfection.

Skill and mystique.

There was another time he was bowling to me in the last over of a Shield game. The close-in fielders’ shadows were across the pitch and I was trying to get them to move away. I asked the umpire to step in. I could see Warnie starting to fume. He said something to the effect of, “Hurry up, mate, I’m hitting the town tonight, we haven’t got all day.” But I wouldn’t budge until the close-in fielders shifted.

A switch was flicked. He got me out second last ball of the day.

The send-off was as good as the ball he bowled to trap me LBW.

It went to another level when I made it into the Test side.

My debut was against the West Indies at the Gabba and I slid into third slip for an over when someone was off the field. Warnie was in the cordon and told us what he was planning for Ramnaresh Sarwan the next over.

“I’m going to bowl a leg-spinner on leg stump, a leg-spinner on middle stump, a leg-spinner on off stump, and then I’m going to throw a big wide one out, and on the fifth ball I’m going to bowl him the flipper, drag him across the crease, and get him lbw,” he said.

“That’s a good plan,” I thought to myself. “I like it, but it’s not that easy to execute.”

The next over I was under the lid at short leg.

It was the best seat in the house.

First ball: perfect leg-spinner on leg stump. The magic had started. Warnie gestured to Ricky Ponting at short cover. “Come in a little bit, Punter. A little to your left. A bit more. That’s it. It’s coming to you.” All the while Shane made sure Sarwan could hear what was going on. And then he whispered to the umpire as he was walking back to his mark, “Ball five, lbw, make sure you’re ready.”

Second ball: perfect leg-spinner on middle stump. To Ricky: “Oooooh! Punter, a bit this way, in a few steps, it’s coming to you.” To umpire: “Ball five.”

Third ball: perfect leg-spinner on off-stump. Same stuff to Ricky, same whisper to the umpire. “Make sure you’re ready, ball five, lbw.”

Fourth ball: big, full, wide one outside off-stump. Sarwan attempted a drive. It wasn’t a chance, falling short of Ricky at short cover. Warnie threw his hand in the air theatrically. “I bloody told you, Ricky! It’s coming to you. In two more, closer, two more steps.” I watched Sarwan’s eyes. They were darting around the place, looking at Warnie, looking at Ricky, and back again. “Next ball, flipper, lbw,” he whispers to the umpire.

I knew what was coming next.

The Aussie fielders knew what was coming next.

The umpire knew what was coming next.

Sarwan? Not a clue.

Fifth ball: perfect flipper. Sarwan is dragged across the crease. The ball cannons into his pad … but he got a tiny little edge on it.

Sarwan survived that one, just, but I will never forget that over for as long as I live. The skill, the confidence, the drama. I had never seen anything like it and I doubt anyone else in the world could have pulled it off. I knew Warnie could beat you with skill and with guile, but this was another level. It was wizardry at work and I felt very fortunate to be near it.

He mightn’t have got Sarwan, but he took five wickets in that innings.

Australia won the match by 379 runs.

That seemed to happen a lot on Warnie’s watch.

A kid at heart

I was intimidated by Warnie when I first made it into the Test side. The core of that team had been together for ten years and knew each other inside out. I never saw myself as an equal. I just wanted to earn Warnie’s respect.

I was so nervous during that West Indies Test and I must’ve gone to the toilet 25 times before it was my turn to bat. On the 25th, Warnie was standing in front of me in his undies and smoking a cigarette as I exited the bathroom.

“Huss, I know you’re nervous, but you’ve got nothing to prove to anyone in here,” he told me. “Go out there, play your way and you cannot fail.”

Upon reflection, that was a wonderful gesture from a veteran to a rookie at a moment when I really needed it. I was fortunate enough to share a few more such exchanges with him, most memorably the “Amazing Adelaide” Test of 2006 against England.

No one gave us a chance to win that match entering the fifth day. Both teams had scored 500-plus in the first innings and the third innings didn’t even begin until late on the fourth day. England resumed at 1-59 on the final day and we still had to bat again.

Personally, I thought it was going to be a draw and I reckon most of the guys in the team – and pretty much everyone else around the world watching – did, too.

Warnie wasn’t having it.

I remember him saying before play on day five, ‘We can win this Test, but we have to believe it.’

He bowled two sessions non-stop and I reckon there was one bad ball in four hours. He willed that England collapse into life and we all followed him. It will forever be remembered as one of the great Ashes victories and it was all because of Shane and his confidence in himself and us.

I was lucky enough to hit the winning runs off Jimmy Anderson with just a few overs left on the final day. Warnie sat next to me in the Adelaide dressing room afterwards.

“I don’t measure players on the runs they’ve scored or the wickets they’ve taken over a career,” he told me. “I judge them on how they perform in those pressure situations. You’ve gone up a notch or two in my book now.”

Those words meant more to me than any award I ever won.

I will treasure them forever.

The dynamic of our relationship changed quite a bit after I retired from playing and joined the Fox Cricket team. I didn’t feel the intimidation or the generational divide as much as I did when we played together for Australia, and whereas back then I would be more inclined to watch and listen and keep my thoughts to myself, as a commentator I was more confident to put my positions forward. I think he respected that.

I didn’t agree with all his views, and we had some great debates, but there are two things that stand out most for me when I reflect on our time together with Fox: the way he read a game, and his generosity.

Warnie would pick up things that even experts didn’t see.

He would throw out an idea, weird and wonderful to the rest of us, and ask Lawrie Colliver, our resident stats guru, to check it out. And usually his intuition was spot on. I would think, “Wow, I would not have thought about that in a million years,” and I like to think I pick up most things.

I watch the game closely but, again, Shane was on another level.

Even when he would get a bee in his bonnet about something, there would usually be a nugget of gold buried in the middle somewhere, if you listened closely enough. He saw the game like no one else does and, maybe, ever will again. It won’t be the same without him next summer.

I also learned during our time commentating together just how generous a person he was. Whenever we were in Melbourne, he would go out of his way to look after everyone and organise barbecues, golf days, events. He would do favours for pretty much anyone who asked and he absolutely loved and adored his kids. He lit up whenever he was around them.

To the end, he remained a kid at heart.

We were at The Espy in St Kilda around Christmas time with the Fox crew and Warnie was up and about with all the excitement and enthusiasm he possessed as a player.

I asked him, “Mate, How do you have the energy for this?”

He replied: “Huss, I bloody love it.”

More Coverage

MacGill: Living in the shadow of Shane Warne

Stuart MacGill

And that’s how he lived until the very end, full of vibrancy and passion. He lived life on his terms. That got him into trouble sometimes, certainly, but it’s also why millions and millions of people around the world loved him.

He was real. He was ours.

He will be missed.