THE MCG CELEBRATION OF A GREAT: Everything you need to know about Shane Warne’s state funeral | WATCH

It was Shane Warne’s first Test ball in England and the bewildered expression of England batsman Mike Gatting said it all and summed up the ensuing mayhem that rocked the cricket world.

As the great cricket journalist Gideon Haigh wrote, there had never before been a “ball of the century” category, but it was instantly obvious that Warne had bowled it.

The mesmerising vision of him ripping the ball from outside leg-stump to take the top of Gatting’s off-stump never loses its impact and sums up the pure wizardry of the game’s greatest spinner.

Warne took 34 wickets that Ashes series.

Shane Warne came into the one-day tournament not long after being dropped from the Test team, and was feuding with captain Steve Waugh. But when it mattered most, he produced mind- boggling brilliance that lifted Australia in one of the most famous matches played – the semi-final against South Africa at Edgbaston.

At 0-48 chasing a small total of 214, South Africa was cruising towards the final when Warne turned the match in the space of three overs – taking three wickets in a row and four of the first five wickets for the innings to wrest back the momentum before the climax of the tied finish.

Channel 9 deliberately put Bill Lawry in commentary to start the Boxing Day Test in 2006 against England, with the script written for Shane Warne – on 699 Test wickets – to reach the magic 700 milestone on home soil at the MCG.

Lawry was left in the seat for an hour and a half because Nine bosses wanted him to call the famous moment – but eventually he had to vacate the chair and attend an MCC lunch as 40 overs passed by without a breakthrough.

But then it happened. Warne spun one past England star Andrew Strauss, then set off on a run around the MCG and send the crowd wild. It was a theatrical moment only Warne could manage – and it was Mark Taylor, not Lawry, to call it happen.

To take a hat-trick on his beloved home ground against the Old Enemy. Does life get any better?

In 1994, Warne became only the seventh player to take a hat-trick in an Ashes Test when he once again set his favourite ground alight. It’s another reason why the decision to rename the Great Southern Stand the S.K. Warne Stand is so fitting.

Warne removed Phil DeFreitas first, then Darren Gough and then who could forget Devon Malcolm – caught sensationally by David Boon at short leg to complete the hat-trick. It’s another moment that will continued to be replayed.

Australian Test star David Warner says this is the Warne cricketing moment he will never forget.

It was entering day five in Adelaide and a draw seemed the only possible result for the second Ashes Test. But the sheer force of Warne’s personality came through when he decided this match was not going to be drawn.

His pure dominance against England was encapsulated on this day. England had led on the first innings with nine wickets in hand, yet Warne produced one of the most stunning spells on record to turn the contest upside down and lead Australia to one of the most extraordinary wins.

Absolutely desperate to make a maiden Test century, Warne inexplicably tried to slog New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori on 99 only to be caught by Mark Richardson at deep mid wicket.

Warne’s former captain Mark Taylor called it a “tragedy” on air, only to be taken aside by Richie Benaud later and sternly told Shane Warne getting out for 99 was not a tragedy.

But while it might not have been a tragedy, it was a cricketing disaster because in the modern day, Warne would have had his century thanks to DRS. Vettori had bowled a no ball, which umpire Darrell Hair failed to pick up and if it had been, Warne would have added Test century maker to his list of titanic accomplishments. A more than handy lower order batsman, Warne never came so close again.

Warne rated this delivery as one of his best. It was the reinvention of a mysterious ball – the flipper – which had drifted in and out of cricket for 80 years.

The flipper Warne bowled to dismiss West Indies captain Richie Richardson became the signature play of a famous Test and is the moment when Warne truly came of age as a Test bowler.

And where else would this take place, of course, than at Warne’s field of dreams – the MCG. It was only the fifth Test of Warne’s career and he claimed a second innings seven-for which clinched Australia a famous win over the No.1 team in Test cricket.

The composed England captain Andrew Strauss is not a man easily flabbergasted, but he could not believe a ball could turn at such a savage degree and rattle his stumps as it did on this day at Edgbaston.

It was a stunning moment in one of the greatest Test series yet played, and although Australia went on to ultimately lose, Warne may have been at the top of his game.

It was 12 years after the Gatting ball of the 20th century, and suddenly Warne had a contender for the ball of the 21st century. The ball pitched so wide of off-stump, Strauss thought he could pad the ball away only to have his stumps knocked over.

Strauss was as dumbfounded as Gatting, and it was like history repeating.

After an inauspicious start to his Test career, Warne was thrown the ball by Allan Border on the final day of a cliffhanger Test match against Sri Lanka in Colombo – and won Australia the match.

Victory was feeling almost out of reach for Australia as Sri Lanka were mowing down a victory target of only 181 late on day five.

But Warne rose to the occasion, taking 3-0 in his last 13 balls of the innings to clinch victory for Australia by only 16 runs at 5.17pm and in the shadows of the close.

This was Warne’s arrival as a Test force.

This was not Test cricket, but the experience of watching a mic’d up Shane Warne commentate the downfall of Brisbane Heat star Brendon McCullum in a Big Bash match in 2011 illustrated the genius of Warne, because viewers were taken along for the ride.

Warne commentated the over from his eyes as he worked the Kiwi star McCullum over.

On the third ball, Warne predicted to the commentators in the box exactly how he was going to get McCullum out.

And then it happened. As Gideon Haigh wrote, Warne’s genius was heightened because he played in the TV era, and this BBL moment was the embodiment of the showman at work.