I HAVE come to believe that everybody is good at something. The problem for a lot of people is finding it. You might have a potentially great writer who never picks up a pen except to scrawl out a shopping list, or an inspirational teacher who spends their working life pushing papers in an office.

I was among the lucky ones. Where my ability to spin a cricket ball came from, I don’t know. I can only think that I was born with it. I have a skill as a cricketer and fortunately cricket found me.

When I look back over 15 years as a member of the Australia cricket team and having been very lucky to have played in an era that has been very successful, I think of the way it all began and how easily I could still be drifting around from job to job, feeling unfulfilled, living off my wit’s end for the day. True, I played for my school teams and the local club, but as a teenager, cricket was never more than a hobby. Aussie Rules was my first love, tennis probably just second.

Everything changed in 1989, when my beloved St Kilda decided I was not going to make the grade as an Aussie Rules player. I was too slow and not tall enough. The news struck me like a thunderbolt.

With nothing to lose, I decided to go to England with a mate called Rick Gough to play club cricket in Bristol. From then on cricket took over. Without planning a career, I just seemed to be playing all the time. I made some progress at club level, played for Victoria and found myself walking out at Sydney for my Test debut in the season of 1991-92. It all happened very quickly.

A lot has happened since, but my proudest moment is still that day when I looked up at the electronic scoreboard and read the words: “Congratulations Shane Warne. You are the 350th Australian Test player.”

The scale of what I had achieved really sunk in. Test cricket had been played for more than 110 years and only 350 players had represented our great country. Put like that it felt as though I had joined a privileged group — and up to then without really trying or deserving to earn my spot. Even then it took a while to feel at ease in those surroundings. But cricket quickly became a passion.

© Text Shane Warne 2006

• Extracted from Shane Warne: My Illustrated Career, to be published by Cassell Illustrated on September 14 at £20
  
• Available to pre-order through Times Books First for £18 (including p&p) by phone on 0870 160 8080 or online at:
  
  timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst

Explore Cricket

• Counties