Warne's stunning leg break on that Friday afternoon in Manchester would change his life, however, and that of an emerging Australian cricketer who was before then positioned in relative obscurity on the international scene. It was the now legendary leg-spinner's first ball in an Ashes series and it reverberates two decades on, as Australia ready themselves for another tilt in England. No idea ... Ian Healy celebrates after Mike Gatting is bowled by Shane Warne in 1993. Credit:Getty Images "We'd seen a few bits and pieces of him but nothing special," Gatting told the Daily Mail. "We thought we'd have a look at him, see what he's about and what he could do but it was a remarkable delivery. "There are people who think I should have padded it away but I never tried to lunge at a spinner. I was more worried about being bowled around the back of my legs. "The captain, Graham Gooch, was down the other end. When we talked about it, he said I needn't have worried about that because my backside was too big for the ball to get past, so it wasn't very sympathetic!

"I had most of it covered and had ensured it would not get round the back of my legs and if it did anything else, I was in the right position to react, but it spun quickly as well as a long way. It was a leg break and I knew he had put a lot of revs on it and we knew the wicket might turn, but not that much!" Shane Warne bowling during the Australian tour of England in 1993. Credit:Getty Images Richie Benaud's live commentary summed up Gatting's incredulity. "Gatting has absolutely no idea what has happened to it. Still doesn't know," went the Benaud call as Warne pumped a first, jumped and pointed. "He asked [umpire] Kenny Palmer on the way out. Kenny Palmer just gave him the raised eyebrow and a little nod. That's all it needed." Australia's captain at the time, Allan Border, recalls not realising exactly how special the Warne ball was until later in the day. "It's amazing, in the field I wasn't aware of how good a ball that was," Border said on Tuesday.

"I was fielding out at a catching cover...so you don't know how good it is. I think 'Heals' [Ian Healy] said 'that was unbelievable' and a few of the guys that could see from where they were fielding knew. But me personally I didn't realise until the break until I actually saw some footage of it...then I thought 'that's a big start Warnie'. "We had high hopes of him. We knew he'd rip the ball, we'd sort of kept him under a little bit of wraps in England, and we knew we sort of had something special. But to start off quite like that, to announce himself straight away, was incredible." Border briefed Warne before his first ball in an England series. "To be honest I don't remember the exact conversation but it would have been along the lines of getting the field just right and where 'Gatt' is strong, some sort of idea of the line to bowl to Mike Gatting," he said. "I didn't say 'pitch it outside leg stump and hit the top of off'. "You're talking about one of the better players of spin bowling in world cricket at the time. That really just sort of mesmerised all of the England batting and he ended up having a great series."

Cricket writer Gideon Haigh, in last year's award-winning On Warne, described the unforgettable leg break at length, saying Warne "surfed the wave of his own adrenaline and spun as hard as he was able". "The delivery seemed at first to be drifting to leg, a drift that onlookers were conditioned to regard as disappointing, loose, nugatory; in fact, it was this drift as much as the subsequent break that was lethal, sharpening the angle of the deviation, dragging the opponent's weight one way as the ball prepared to dart the other, like a Pele feint or a Billy Slater dummy," Haigh wrote. From the archive: more on Shane Warne