Difference between Warne and Macgill

Terry Jenner talking to Sambit Bal

I did ask him, though, about the difference between Stuart MacGill and Warne. MacGill had benefitted from Warne’s absence and used the period profitably, claiming 43 wickets in eight Tests at 25.11, with a strike rate of 45.9. But of course he had made no impression on the touring Indians, nor was he expected to. During a meet-the-press event before the Test, MacGill, while giving fulsome praise to Warne, had questioned, only half in jest, his claims to mystery balls.

“Stuart is right,” Jenner said. “There is only so much spin you can generate, and there are only so many balls you can bowl.” Then he counted them: the legbreak, the topspinner, the backspinner, the flipper and the googly. The difference between Warne and Macgill, he said, wasn’t the number of different balls they possessed or how much they spun the ball. It was in how the ball arrived at the batsman.

Then he proceeded, oblivious to scores of other journalists and a few commentators around, to give a full demonstration. Because he was so round-arm, MacGill’s ball arrived at the right eye of the batsman and went on straight, giving the batsman 20:20 vision. “When Warnie bowls to right-handers,” Jenner said, mimicking Warne’s action, “the ball arrives at eye-level and then disappears behind the left ear, forcing the batsman to search for it.” That Warne had the ability to drift the ball wasn’t unknown, but Jenner’s way of explaining it gave it different meaning.