Which bowler delivered the 'Ball of the Century' to Mike Gatting in 1993?
Answer
Shane Warne
Answer
Shane Warne
Shane Warne delivered the “Ball of the Century” to Mike Gatting in 1993. The famous delivery arrived on 4 June during the first Ashes Test between England and Australia at Old Trafford in Manchester.
It was Warne's first ball in an Ashes series on English soil. The Australian leg-spinner pitched it well outside Gatting's leg stump, but the ball drifted in the air, landed on a worn patch of the pitch and spun sharply past the batter's defensive stroke. It clipped the top of the off stump and sent the bail flying.
The moment became a landmark for leg-spin bowling. Warne was still relatively inexperienced internationally, and many observers considered wrist-spin an old-fashioned craft compared with fast bowling. His delivery helped revive worldwide interest in leg-spin and launched one of the defining rivalries of the 1990s. The match was played at Old Trafford, a detail sometimes confused with Lord's because both grounds are closely associated with English cricket.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026