There are men and women who transcend their sports. There are men and women who shape the sporting consciousness of a generation or two.
Shane Warne was one of those.
Every kid in the junior nets wanted to be him; every adult in the pavilion bar wanted to be him.
In our time, there has not been a more watchable cricketer, there has not been a more compelling sportsman, there has not been a rascal as uniquely beguiling as Warne.
Like everyone, he would have had his faults and some of the situations he ended up in were probably more serious than others.
But to the sport-loving public, he was a one-off, a character who never failed to raise emotions.
The figures, the statistics, the achievements are in record-book black and white.
That he is one of the greatest players to ever take the field is a matter of fact.
But numbers are only a fraction of his legacy.
His legacy goes way beyond the statistics, goes way beyond the wickets.
He made the cricket world’s youngsters fall back in love with leg spin, for a start.
Many will not have an instant recall of his final wicket tally but everyone with even a remote interest in the game will have an instant recall of THAT ball.
“How anyone can spin the ball the width of Mike Gatting boggles the mind,” wrote the late sportswriter Martin Johnson.
But folks in Accrington knew. Warne had spent a year at the Lancashire League club and turned the ball square.
They loved him there. And they loved that all the money he earned was put back into the club, a lot of it across the bar.
He made friends everywhere he went - gregarious does not do Warne justice.
Trite as it might seem, that is the greater part of his legacy.
In an era when sportsmen and women were increasingly trying to learn greatness from one manual or other, Warney did it his way.
Unplayable one moment, incorrigible the next.
A five-for, a match-winning performance, a beer, a smoke, a scrape - in no particular order.
No wonder so many could relate to him.
That he has been taken so soon is so desperately sad but now, Warne will never grow old in our minds.
He will always be the mischievous, peroxide genius.
He will always put a smile on a generation’s face.
RIP Warney.
