The first relates to "four distinct kinds of legbreaks". Which statement has, as I know from personal experience, been causing some quiet amusement to several top flight Indian batsmen.

A leg break, by definition, is the back of the hand delivery that turns away from the right hand batsmen. And that is it! Sure, Warne varies the angle of turn from ball to ball -- but that does not qualify as four different kinds of delivery, merely as four variations of the same.

I mean, you might as well say Glenn McGrath has four different kinds of fast ball -- one outside off, one on off, one on middle and one on leg!

The next myth relates to the frequent mentions we hear, again in the media, about how Warne is in seculsion, experimenting with -- and on the verge of perfecting -- a "new type of delivery".

Noticeably, such mentions pop up just before a series -- the idea presumably being to sow even more doubt in the minds of opposing batsmen.

The last time we heard this was after the Chennai Test, when Warne was quoted as saying that he was working on a new kind of delivery which he would be trying out at Calcutta. If he did, it went singularly unremarked, as his bowling analysis suffices to show.

Such hype is part of the overall character of the man. Long-time Warne-watchers will recall innumerable instances when, faced with a batsman doing reasonably well, Warne will walk to the top of his bowling mark, pause there in thought, then suddenly amble back down the wicket to summon partners-in-crime Mark Taylor and, more often, Ian Healy, to a long, involved mid-pitch discussion which is invariably followed by the minutest of field readjustments.

All of which appears to give the impression that the bowler has, just that minute, worked out precisely how to get rid of the batsman in question. And this in turn leads to a funny anecdote. Warne went into this particular act once, in an ODI against New Zealand. And then bowled a standard flipper, which Simon Doull, then batting, blasted through the covers for four. 'Four years ago you wouldn't have spotted that one,' Warne reportedly told Doull after that delivery. 'Four years ago, you were a much better bowler!' came the prompt response from the Kiwi.

Apocryphal perhaps, but the anecdote, which has since gained wide currency, is indication enough that Warne -- the ultimate aggressor on the cricket field -- will do whatever it takes to get a wicket.

And that is not being said, here, as a criticism -- merely as a reiteration of a rather obvious fact, by way of prelude.

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