{"id":203068,"date":"2025-12-25T09:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203068\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T09:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T09:49:06","slug":"am-i-allowed-to-hold-it-behind-the-seams-of-the-mcgs-shane-warne-exhibition-the-ashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/203068\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Am I allowed to hold it?\u2019: behind the seams of the MCG\u2019s Shane Warne exhibition | The Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI feel like a medieval pilgrim being ushered into a chapel to behold some holy relics,\u201d whispers Tom Holland as we head deeper into the bowels of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The historian and The Rest Is History Podcast co-host, his wife, Sadie, and producer Dom are getting an exclusive look at some of the items that make up the new Shane Warne<\/a> \u201cTreasures of a Legend\u201d exhibition soon to be unveiled at the Australian Sports Museum inside the famous ground. I\u2019m lucky enough to be tagging along.<\/p>\n

Jed Smith, the genial manager of the museum, is giving us Pom pioneers the sneak peek. Money can\u2019t buy this access, but a global juggernaut of a podcast seemingly can. The night before Holland and his podcast partner, Dominic Sandbrook, had \u201cplayed\u201d the Sydney Opera House. They are fresh off the plane to Melbourne with a gig at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda later that evening, a few hundred yards from the very cricket ground where Warne first bamboozled with those fizzing leg-breaks.<\/p>\n

Holland is a huge cricket fan and bowls devastating medium pace for the Authors CC. His six-hitting and hat-trick-taking have become stuff of myth and legend, with perhaps more emphasis on the former. \u201cWill we get to see the ball of the century?<\/a>\u201d Holland asks as we excitedly shuffle towards an unmarked green door. Smith pushes the door and holds it open for us to file through. \u201cOh yes,\u201d he replies with a smile the width of one of Warne\u2019s lurching leggies.<\/p>\n

Exhibits on display at the Australian Sports Museum. Photograph: Eugene Hyland<\/p>\n

We enter a vast room of metal shelving units and huge tables. There are boxes and bags. There are hats, helmets, bats and stumps, boots and balls. So many balls. \u201cThere\u2019s a real poignancy to it,\u201d says Smith. \u201cHe was actually curating all this stuff as he went. He was a maverick, in the very truest sense of the word, but he was methodical too.\u201d<\/p>\n

It transpires that Warne would return home after a series and empty his kitbag out, together with Simone, his then wife and mother of his three children. The couple would date, inscribe and catalogue the balls, stumps and other items that he had collected. Year upon year Warne\u2019s achievements and legend grew. More items were chalked up and kept for safekeeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost as if he knew that someday people would want to come and see all this stuff, the objects, now artefacts that underpinned his career and life,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s his famous white floppy sun hat, the one doffed in the indelible image as he took his final Test bow in 2007. There is the stump from his Trent Bridge balcony boogie in 1997. There is the helmet he donned with a sheepish grin during a 1999 ODI against England as he emerged from the MCG changing rooms in his flip-flops and joggers to quieten a mob throwing golf balls and beer bottles from the notoriously hostile Bay 13 section. Seconds later that same mob were bowing down to Warne en masse. The stand now bears his name.<\/p>\n

Shane Warne\u2019s famous floppy hat features in the exhibition. Photograph: Mark Nolan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The MCG is the fitting place for the items, a son of Melbourne and proud Victorian. Warne\u2019s family got in touch with the museum and are a key part of the exhibition. \u201cThe MCG is the place we all wanted them to end up,\u201d says Smith. \u201cShane\u2019s children were desperately keen to be involved. They have provided voiceovers that serve as a guide to the exhibition. It gives it real emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith guides our slack-jawed group around the room. It says something about Warne\u2019s unique appeal that four English people are rendered childlike and agog upon seeing the totems of the great Australian\u2019s career, especially when you consider Ben Stokes\u2019 men are getting pulverised in the Ashes. Warne always transcended.<\/p>\n

The items reveal little glimpses into the man. Never buying into the cult of the baggy green, Warne wrote that that the reverence some of his teammates gave the cap made him want to \u201cpuke\u201d. It turns out he had four. \u201cInside one of them it says \u2018on loan from Cricket<\/a> Australia\u2019,\u201d chuckles Smith.<\/p>\n

The shirt worn by Warne in his final Test match (left), the ball of the century alongside the bowling boots that the King of Spin sported when bowling that famous delivery. Composite: Eugene Hyland<\/p>\n

There\u2019s umpteen pairs of bowling boots, all with a hole cut out of the big toe area. The pair Warne had on when he took his 249th Test wicket, the one that saw him go past Richie Benaud as Australia\u2019s premier leg-spinner are sat just apart on a shelf. \u201cBeneaud. 249\u201d is scrawled on them in marker pen. Spelling mistake, bowler\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

Tom Holland poses with the ball that changed Warne\u2019s life. Photograph: James Wallace\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

We come to the balls. A reverent hush descends. \u201cTo have this \u2026 it\u2019s just magical,\u201d says Smith as he hands Holland the ball that changed Warne\u2019s life and gave cricket one of its iconic moments. \u201cAm I allowed to hold it?\u201d Holland asks in disbelief. He cradles it like a newly hatched fledgling. Once-in-a-lifetime photos are hurriedly posed for and taken. The ball comes to me and the cellophane is peeping open. The seam that Warne imbibed with his wizardry is winking up at me. The rest are momentarily distracted. I shouldn\u2019t. I mustn\u2019t. But of course, I do.<\/p>\n

Like Harvey Keitel in The Piano, bewitched by the hole in Holly Hunter\u2019s tights, I place a gossamer touch on the stitching with my finger end, barely perceptible. I do it for the teenage wrist-spinner in me that has lain dormant for two decades. This could be the cure, like drinking from the grail. I do it for the future grandkids. I do it because Warnie wouldn\u2019t mind, would he? He would have admired the chutzpah, surely?<\/p>\n

Since returning home from Australia I haven\u2019t yet attempted to bowl a fizzing leg-spinner. I have, however, been racked with guilt. I call Jed Smith and confess. \u201cYou scoundrel!\u201d he laughs as he assures me he isn\u2019t going to come after me. \u201cIt will firmly be behind security glass in the exhibition,\u201d he adds, pointedly. \u201cShane Warne\u2019s magic and skill spoke to people on a personal level. I could see how blown away you guys were coming face to face with these objects. It made me even more excited for the exhibition to open.\u201d<\/p>\n

I smile, with no little relief and we say goodbye. I rub my thumb across my forefinger. Magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWarne: <\/a>Treasures of a <\/a>Legend\u201d is open now.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI feel like a medieval pilgrim being ushered into a chapel to behold some holy relics,\u201d whispers Tom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-203068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}