The surgeons told Warne he might never play again. He had 313 Test wickets at the time.
Seventh of May, 1998, Melbourne. Torn cartilage, torn ligaments forced Warne to have a reconstructed shoulder.
And when he came back from the reconstruction, the classic flipper was never the same. The one ball nobody could pick, the one that looked like a half-tracker until it skidded under the bat. Bowling it at full tilt hurt too much. So he had to pull back.
It was probably the most important weapon he had. Nasser Hussain described it perfectly: you would think he had lost it that day, and then the next ball would go straight through you. After the reconstruction, that shoulder-heavy action was physically painful to produce. Though he still delivered it on occasion, and frequently used its threat to play mind games, he could no longer rely on it as a regular stock ball.
Australia dropped him in April 1999. Eleven months after the knife. The greatest leg-spinner who ever lived, left out of a Test side.
Two months later: 4 for 29 in a World Cup semi-final, 4 for 33 in the final.
Then eight more years. Line, top-spin, the flat slider, and a method built entirely on what a batter was thinking rather than what the pitch was doing.
Three hundred and ninety-five of his 708 Test wickets came after the knife. More than half a career, built entirely on what was left.
The greatest would have been 57 today.
Happy birthday, Warnie.