Michael Jordan was at his very best when I saw him and it has stayed with me across the years, informing much of what I write about sport, especially when I turn to that eternally absorbing and elusive subject of greatness.

Jordan was playing for the Chicago Bulls against the Phoenix Suns in the NBA finals in Chicago in 1993. He had a poor first match by his standards and was given much criticism, for there was a breaking story about his gambling habit to add to the pressure. So in the second game, Jordan scored 55 points in a virtuoso display of sporting greatness.

And Paul Westphal, the Suns coach, said two things I have never forgotten. He was asked if he was surprised by what Jordan did. “No. I’m amazed, but I’m not surprised.” He then added: “He inflicted his will on us.”

Now, as we learn that Shane Warne is to retire from Test-match cricket, these words come back to me. That is because they are peculiarly suitable for Warne. He is in the same class as Jordan; that is to say, the best of the best of the best.

Ever since he established himself as a match-winning bowler, Warne has constantly amazed me, never once surprised me. And in match after match he has inflicted his will on his opponents, the last of whom were England. They lost that traumatic second Test in Adelaide for one simple reason — the will of Shane Warne.

Warne is the finest bowler of any kind ever to play cricket. He was the only bowler named by the great and the good of the sport when they listed their five cricketers of the 20th century, and there hasn’t been another to emerge since.

Warne has done what Jordan has done. Both played a team game with outstanding individual brilliance, without once ceasing to be a team player through and through. Both loved the cosiness of the team but loved to be the stand-out man within it. Both thrived on responsibility. Both loved to be the go-to guy, the man expected to make the crucial contribution to victory.

In times of trouble, in times of strength, these were the men who stepped forward. Each used his team as a kind of court, the better to set off his greatness, but did so without ever losing the corporate buzz of team sports, the rejoicing in a colleague’s accomplishments, the relishing of achievement as a shared thing.

I loved that storming performance of Jordan’s against the Suns — the way he demanded the ball, the way he forced those around him to play above their abilities, the way his opponents were forced to go along with Jordan’s desire. I saw the same thing with Warne. You can isolate the individual tricks of brilliance: Jordan’s no-look pass, that move when he fakes right and goes right, the way he still has half a dozen options after he has taken off. And you can pick out the various weapons in Warne’s armoury: the flipper, the newly revived googly and the leg break that turns square on a sheet of glass.

But above all, with both of them, you remember the command. The command of space and time; each player’s certainty that the moment belonged to him. I saw Jordan, motionless, ball in his enormous hands, waiting until the time was absolutely right — and then the plunge into the maelstrom of bodies, the pass or the fake, the run and drive, sometimes to defy three markers and score, sometimes to take them out of the game and open the way for a colleague to finish.

And I have seen Warne, staring down the pitch, lips pursed, eyes telling the batsman: “Now I’ve worked you out. Now I’ve got you.” Even if he hadn’t. And the pause at the back of his “run”, the panther-stroll to the wicket and contortion of the shoulder — how come he never bowled it right out of its socket? — the gasp of pain and effort at the ball’s release, and once again the triumph, a thing of which he never tired.

Jordan was a giant. Never mind all the marketing and the shoes and the role-model crap; the point about Jordan is sport. And Warne is much the same. Never mind the scandals; the point here is sport. Every world available for conquest, he conquered.

Warne is like Sir Steve Redgrave in his longevity and his total inability to feel slaked or sated or jaded; he is like Michael Schumacher in his unending love of the duel; he is like Pete Sampras in his ability to make the big play at the biggest of big moments; he is like Roger Federer in his ability to produce skills of extraordinary delicacy under colossal extremes of pressure; he is like Tiger Woods in his willingness to go beyond the limits set by the greatest exponents of his art.

But, perhaps alone among this collection of greats, Warne is possessed of that touch of devil. In his real life — an area in which Warne has proved himself consistently inept — the devil led him into trouble again and again. But in sport it was the making of him.

He had — he still has — that relish of mischief, that delight in teasing and twisting and bamboozling. There was always a sense with Warne that it was all rather a lark. He had that air of amusement — that cricket should be such wonderful fun and batsmen such glorious dupes. And so it comes to a close, a decade and a half in which he imposed his will, a decade and a half in which he never once surprised.

But always amazed.