Shane Watson earlier today announced his retirement from Test cricket. Watson, in his career filled with ups and downs, did not have any extravagant stats to boast about, but his contribution to the Australian side as a utility player was brilliant. Watson’s dream run in test cricket came under the leadership of Ricky Ponting, when he enjoyed the two years of 2009 and 2010.
However, a lot of people in the Australian cricketing fraternity believe that Watson did not live up to his potential and reputation. Considering his talent, Watson should have played a higher number of Test matches and his individual Test statistics too should have been quite higher. As a matter of fact, Shane Warne, the King of Spin in his book once said that he personally rated Watson even higher than former mercurial all rounder Andrew Symonds.
Watson made his debut in the New Year’s test of 2005 against Pakistan in Sydney. It was in his debut Test that he had to endure a moment of sheer embarrassment. Watson was way too excited as he was handed the red Kookaburra ball by Ponting. Watson though, couldn’t control his excitement and during his run up, lost his balance and fell down near the bowling crease. This resulted in the crowd bursting out in laughter at Watson’s utter misery! Talk about embarrassing debut moments, and you wouldn’t find any better!
Here is the video of that incident.