“They have come to watch this bloke Sachin Tendulkar play shots”: How Shane Warne frustrated Sourav Ganguly and earned his wicket in AUS vs IND 1999 Adelaide Test

Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly were two of the most competitive players of their era. When Ganguly was the captain of the side, Australian cricket was at its peak, but still, India managed to fight with the Aussies, and Ganguly’s aggressive captaincy was considered as one of the reasons behind the same.

Warne was the leader of the Australian spin attack, and he is one of the biggest players to ever play for Australia. Apart from captaincy, Ganguly was an important part of India’s batting lineup, and Warne was the one who used to target the big fishes. Ian Chappell once revealed an interesting incident involving Warne and Ganguly.

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Warne and Ganguly did not face each other on many occasions in International cricket. Ganguly managed to score 61 runs in 108 balls across all formats, and Warne managed to take his wicket just once. The left-handers are generally good players of the leg spin.

Shane Warne frustrated Sourav Ganguly and earned his wicket

Australian great Ian Chappell revealed an interesting incident during the 1999 Adelaide Test, where Warne frustrated Sourav Ganguly to get his wicket. Chappell revealed that Ganguly blocked some continous balls of Warne, to which Warne went towards Ganguly and made a comment on him.

Warner’s comment was certainly over Ganguly’s head, and he later tried to slog Warne by coming down the wicket but got out stumped. Chappell highlighted that Warne never used to sledge, but he had the neck of getting under the skin of the opponents to trouble them.

“Shane bowled three or four balls wide into the footmarks – some of them didn’t hit the footmarks so they didn’t come back as much, and Ganguly was just kicking them away,” Ian Chappell said in the documentary ‘Shane’.

“And after three or four of these, Shane said ‘Hey mate, these 40,000 people here haven’t come here to see you block and kicking the ball, they have come to watch this bloke Sachin play shots.’ And about an over later, Ganguly ran down the track trying to hit him down the ground and he was out stumped.”

Australia won the match easily by 285 runs at the end where Warne took a total of 6 wickets. Ganguly scored 60 runs in the 1st innings and was the highest run-scorer of the side in the 2nd innings with 43 runs.