Why is Shane Warne considered to have bowled the 'ball of the century'?

Legends never die. Shane Warne's 'ball of the century', delivered on a damp Manchester pitch on the second day of an Ashes Test in 1993, will therefore live on forever as a turning point in the history of cricket.

Why is Warne's delivery to Mike Gatting considered to be the best ball in 100 years? "It turned ridiculously, I've never seen a ball turn like that ever," said Darren Gough on the recent documentary 'Shane', where a host of other legends also discuss the delivery. "All of a sudden, a legend was born," Allan Border said about it.

Gough is partially right but the 'ridiculous turn' is hardly the only reason. England's Matt Parkinson delivered the biggest spinning ball (calculated at 12.1 degrees) at an ODI last year, but that ball received no such moniker.

The delivery was also special because of the players involved. Warne, who had played 11 Tests and taken an unflattering 31 wickets in them, was bowling his first ball to Mike Gatting in his first Ashes Test. Gatting, a veteran of 73 Tests, one of England's safest batsmen and a supposed specialist against spinners, had an incredulous expression when bowled, this also adding to the narrative.

"It pitched outside leg, it missed everything - and I'm quite wide - and it clipped the off stump bail. I looked at the umpire. He looked at me and was like yeah that's out, you can go. It was surreal," Gatting said about the ball in 'Shane'.

Of course, the English press is eager to label every ball that makes their batsmen look foolish as exceptional balls. There is an adage that one 'ball of the century' is bowled every minute on a subcontinental evening. But there was a epochal sense with the Gatting ball if seen with a wider lens too - a greying English batsman made to look foolish by a 23-year-old Australian spinner, at a time when Australia were in the early stages of a long domination of world cricket and England fading away.

For his part, Gatting is now happy he is a part of cricket history. "Had I got out to that ball and he had gone back to beach cricket with about 35 Test wickets, I could have been upset. But the fact that he turned out to be the best leg spinner of all time in all of cricket, it was not so bad," he said.

Pakistan's Abdul Qadir had given a rebirth to leg spin after years of the art being underused in Test cricket. When a young brash Australian was also seen bringing a ball back from outside the leg stump with such vicious effect, it was clear that leg spin was here to stay.

Warne said about the delivery: "My thought process was let's just bowl the ball and spin the ball as far as you possibly can and send a message to the England guys that this guy can spin it. Let it drift, curve, and just rip it."