Happy 20th birthday to Shane Warne's 'ball of the century'

“I didn’t expect it because I was really nervous and my hands were sweaty,” said Shane Warne, in his umpteenth interview regarding the ball of the century. Today, it is 20 years to the day that incredible delivery was bowled — Warne’s leg-spinner confounding Mike Gatting and bowling him from behind the legs.

Here’s a collection of some quotes on the ball, followed by a YouTube video.

“If it had been a cheese roll, it would never have got past him.” - Graham Gooch.

*“How anyone can spin a ball the width of Gatting boggles the mind.” - British journalist Martin Johnson

Gatting has absolutely no idea what has happened to it. Still doesn’t know.- Richie Benaud

“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!” - Mike Gatting, the victim.

“It’s amazing, in the field I wasn’t aware of how good a ball that was. 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’.” Allan Border.