Heads and Tales | Life without Warnie

The departure of our champions was a bit like an earthquake: the quake itself is damaging, but sometimes the aftershocks can be worse. The full impact of (Shane) Warne’s exit really hit me in Sydney a year later, when India waltzed to 532 in their first innings, with Tendulkar and Laxman making centuries. There were long periods in that innings when nothing was happening for us on the ground Warnie had dominated for so long. Punter (Ricky Ponting), standing beside me, quietly dropped the line, “So this is life without Warnie."