It was on Australia’s tour of South Africa in 1994 that Allan Border realised Shane Warne was different to the rest.
The tubby kid with blond hair had already bowled the Ball of the Century, and he’d already taken a five-four on five occasions.
But it was on the 1994 tour of South Africa, after an encounter with a billionaire, that Border came to understand that Warne wasn’t just any other bloke.
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During Warne’s memorial at the MCG on Wednesday night, the spin king’s first national skipper shared a priceless story from their early days as teammates.
“My memories of that ’94 South African tour, in particular, you talk about… it was my last tour as an Australian cricket player,” Border recalled.
“We started the tour off in Pretoria playing against the Nicky Oppenheimer XI. If you don’t know the name, he was the De Beers company (chairman), so a very wealthy individual. But a big cricket fan.
“This particular day, I don’t remember too much about the game itself, but the challenge was put to me of a game of golf against Nicky Oppenheimer, his CEO… and of course my partner had to be Shane Warne.
“Anyway… we go out to this beautiful golf course for the big match against Oppenheimer (and) his CEO, (and there’s) Shane and myself. The game’s going along well, there’s good banter happening and then Nicky noticed that Shane had a little diamond stud in his ear… of course he started to have a good look at it and he said, ‘I don’t know if that’s a real diamond, Shane. It looks like a zircon to me’. That riled Warne up and the banter started from there.”
Then came some brilliant banter from Warne.
“Nicky Oppenheimer’s using an old club and Warnie started getting into him about, ‘Jeez, mate, you’re using your dad’s clubs? We’ll all chip in and buy you a new set if you like, champ’,” Border remembered.
“The banter went from there, that type of thing, good day out on the golf course, and of course the Aussies got up. That was pretty important. We just had a fantastic day with these two guys, back to the hotel.
“The next morning we were milling around in the foyer, waiting to get on the team bus, and a courier arrives. We get called over to the concierge desk to be greeted with these two parcels. All very excited (because it was) from Oppenheimer. I rip up my little package and there’s an envelope there and there’s 20 rand in this envelope… which is about $2, maybe… they said, ‘Well played yesterday. Congratulations. Enjoy the rest of the tour. Nicky Oppenheimer’. I thought, ‘Well, fair enough, they paid their golfing debts, as you should do’.”
It was then Warne’s time to see what he’d received.
“Warnie’s ripping open his box and then he gets a little parcel in there, and I open it up and there’s this huge diamond stud earring in this parcel, and the note said, ‘Now that’s a real diamond there, Shane’… Our eyes met and I just looked at him and thought, ‘You lucky bastard. You are the luckiest bastard that’s ever been called lucky bastard’.
“I gave him a bit of a tirade. I said, ‘Look, you gave me nothing yesterday, absolutely zero, zilch, nothing. Where’s the justice? What’s going on here?’.
“He’s just waiting for this tirade to finish and he’s just looking at me with this silly grin on his face and I’ve finished up and he says, ‘Hang on, skip. Hang on, skip. If you go and get your ear pierced I’ll give you my old one’.
“(It was) then I knew he was going to walk in a different stratosphere to the rest of us. That’s the moment I knew.”
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