Ding, ding, ding … the death of the King of Spin.

Oh, Warnie, you golden-locked bastard,

hips like a dream, wrists like a whip, spinning those balls, deceiving the masses —

but you never fooled me, you tanned little prick.

You lived fast, laughed loud, licked scandal like a stamp,

sent text after text with those grubby little hands.

Oh, Shane, Shane, tell me, baby,

when you played with fire, did you know you’d burn?

Ding, ding, ding … the death of the King of Spin.

And yet, oh, yet, I wanted you.

Not your mind, God no, not that slab of fried dim sim in your skull,

but your body — your bronzed, peroxide-crowned temple of meat,

your gambler’s grin, your smirking sin, your warlock’s fingers, conjuring drift and dip and —

oh, Shane, I hate you, I crave you, I wish I never saw you in those KFC ads.

Ding, ding, ding … the death of the King of Spin.

Then, like a mirage in the heat of the Outback, he came —

Bob Dylan, cowboy-hatted, spurred boots clacking, voice like sandpaper dragged across a harmonica.

“You ain’t got no soul, Warnie,” he wheezes, hands trembling as he draws his pistol.

“Seven hundred wickets, but not one clean slate.”

The barrel glints, a single shot rings — Warnie staggers, his perfect, scandalous body collapsing, his blood as red as the Baggy Green ain’t.

And he falls — oh, how he falls —

into my arms, his lips trembling, his voice, high-pitched, barely a whisper …

“I never saw The Sopranos.” I stroke his hair, damp with sweat, sticky with regret.

“Me neither,” I whisper back, and our lips meet —

but oh, oh, the floodgates burst, his blood surges,

hot and thick, into my mouth, filling me, drowning me, painting me in the crimson of cricketing sin.

I drink Warnie.

I become Warnie.

His life, his genius, his leg-spin magic, coursing through my veins, turning my wrists supple, my grip divine.

The room spins — no, I spin —

a perfect leg-break unfurling from my fingers, ripping, biting, turning square.

A drift so wicked, Richie Benaud nods from the beyond.

I stand tall. I lick my lips.

And somewhere, in the echoing distance …

Ding, ding, ding …

the death of the King of Spin.