CHENNAI: For a nineties kid who consumed way too much cricket, Shane Warne was the one true deity. Forget Sachin Tendulkar. Or Brian Lara. Or Wasim Akram. Or Curtly Ambrose. They can all take a back seat and genuflect in the general direction of the sport's greatest entertainer who passed away from a suspected heart-attack in Thailand on Friday.
The legendary leg-spinner didn't just play the sport, he made it an immersive experience in high definition at a time when said technology didn't even exist. He made every ball an event in and of itself.
Watching him with the ball in hand as he sauntered past the umpire and began his delivery stride... it was world cinema played out on a cricket field with thousands of fans. Most times you knew the outcome. He knew the outcome.
The batter knew the outcome. The fielders knew too. Yet, the choreography of it all made for heady viewing. Watching an artist showcase his/her artistry in front of an expectant world is a peek into the innermost sanctum sanctorum of elite sport and nobody did it better than Warne, who redefined the art of leg-spin.
He made leg-spin look like a trip to the cirque du soleil. He made kids copy that legendary action of his. Slow and smooth, it had the grace of a professional ballerina.
In an era where most fans, young and old, wanted to face those extra two balls in backyard cricket, the ones bowling would pretend to be the Australian great.
To complete the act, some would even apply sun block cream and pretend to chew gum for their devotion to their master was total.
What was so compelling about Warne was the theatre around him. You may have fallen in love with the game because of another cricketer but Warne made you lose yourself.
Yes, he was prone to the odd scandal — even when he was an active international, he was never far off from making headlines for the wrong reason — but you knew you were hooked to this mad genius who made the ball dance in ways that challenged rules of geometry.
The Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh, who wrote the seminal book about Warne ('On Warne'), once described him like this.
"(it is) uncommonly easy to like him and a little harder to explain why". And it's not like he went out of his way to maintain the image of a do-gooder so Haigh captured the essence of Warne perfectly.
Yet, the relationship the fans had with him wasn't complex.
It was pure, unadulterated love. Even English cricket fans, who have been at the wrong end of his magic many times, loved him unconditionally. "Simply can't believe we are writing this," tweeted the Barmy Army.
"RIP Shane Warne, one of the game's characters and finest bowlers. Forever etched in Ashes history."
Even if Warne first penetrated the wider consciousness after *that* 'Ball of the Century' to remove Mike Gatting, he was so incredibly clutch and never backed down from a challenge.
The World Cup semifinal in 1999. Running through Pakistan in Brisbane in 1995. Slicing through, a then unconquerable, West Indies in 1992.
700 Test wickets. The contests against Lara and Tendulkar. Coming back after a drugs ban in 2003 to playing his part in the 2005 epic. And finally, leading a motley crew to an IPL crown in 2008.
He may have departed but his legacy will live on. It will live on via YouTube clips and highlight reels. It will live on through the stories fans and cricketers will exchange.
It will live on through his untouchable records. Mainly, it will live on because he redefined the art of leg-spin.
So, the next time you see a 'right-arm leg spinner' coming onto bowl, look up to the heavens and utter a word or two of thanks.
To paraphrase Ian Healy from behind the stumps, 'bowled Shane'.