Tom Halsey said:
Oh, so that's why it nearly forced him to retire?
That is the injury
after the Test series in India.
You injure your shoulder- just a regular soreness- you skip a practice match or two, pop a pill and play on....everything is A-ok.... a month or two later, your shoulder just gives way and you are almost crippled in that shoulder. You take time off and are told that your shoulder may never heal.
That your shoulder popped 2 months later a routine soreness every player experiences has no bearing on the performance
in those two months before being crippled.....Its simple as that.
Warne played that 98 series with the same amount of fitness as practically every other bowler out there.
In 99, he wasnt injured but he was rusty.
And Warne has never really done well against India in the ODIs either - simply speaking, the main reason Warne has been so dismal against India is the way he bowls and the way Indian batsmen bat.
Almost all Indian batsmen - from Dravid,Laxman, Tendulkar, Azhar, Sidhu,Gavaskar to C.K.Nayudu are the absolute best players of anything bowled at their legs - be it pace or spin. ( Ganguly is the only Indian batsman of any repute who's offside game is much much better than his legside game that i can think of)
Many times i've seen an Indian batsman having a tough time with his timing, until the opposition feeds him a few balls on his legs and those disappear into the stands and the player suddenly finds his timing.
India hasnt had an illustrious left handed batting history ( Ganguly is by far the best left handed batsman produced by India and he isnt very good in tests), which means almost all of India's excellent/great batsmen have been right-handers.
Warne's trademark reliance ( his standard style 9 outta 10 times) is to pitch it in the rough outside the right-hander's leg stump and get the ball to viciously spin across.
This means he bowls at the legs of batsmen most of the times, particularly when he overpitches a fraction. And owing to the Indian batsmen being supreme at playing off their legs ( Azhar's legside game was as good as anyone's for example- better than even Viv's IMO but bowling to his offstump made him look merely good,not immortal- same with Sidhu), Warne has usually been cannon fodder against Indian batsmen - be it Tests, ODIs or simple FC matches against FC sides.
That, IMO, is the biggest single factor of Warne's routine annihilation at the hand of Indian batsmen.
Which is why Warne has had very little success against players who have an extremely strong game in the leg-side ( Brian Lara is another example) but does well against batsmen who's legside game is wonky( English batsmen have tended to be prime examples of this, thus his success against them).
