There were plenty of myths and stories surrounding Shane Warne during his playing days, one of which was his obsession with baked beans and how he used to survive on just that during Australia’s tours to India.
It was speculated that Warne used to get cans of baked beans delivered to him especially from Australia since he could not eat the spicy food in India. It was during their tour of 1998 when it was first reported that a Qantas flight carrying 1,900 tins of beans and spaghetti was sent to India for Warne.
But the leg-spin legend revealed on Thursday that the beans and spaghetti were for the whole team and not just ordered by him.
“Let me tell you the story about the baked beans. Everyone thinks all I lived on in India for 12 weeks on the 1998 tour was baked beans. False, incorrect!
“Remember the mid 90s when tours used to go around for around 3 months or 12 weeks. So we finished the Tests and were getting ready for the one-dayers. The (then Australia) coach Geoff Marsh, he sits down at breakfast and he opens a tin of spaghetti and baked beans. And we sat there after having the spicy stuff for so long in India, and we thought how good will some spaghetti and baked beans be on toast.
“So we said to Geoff Marsh, ‘we still have 3 weeks to go, is it possible to get some of these?’. So the next day he spoke to Cricket Australia and told us, ‘they’ve organised it and they should be here in a couple of days’.
“So we get to the docks where the baked beans and spaghetti have been delivered and there’s 3 tonnes of spaghetti and baked beans each. And on both sides of this big crate it was mentioned ‘Shane Warne, India’. There were a lot of other players who wanted the spaghetti and beans but it was just addressed to me.
“So we all helped ourselves to a few tins and we gave away the rest to all the people in India. And that’s how the myth was born that I used to tour India and live on baked beans,” Warne revealed in a video posted on his social media account.
