In his book about all things, but mostly cricket, the great West Indian thinker, C.L.R. James, posits the game as a mirror of humanity, of greater consequence than our indivi-dual selves.

Cricket in that context transcends sport. It is at once statements about politics, history, social evolution, culture and art. So, to paraphrase James, to know only cricket, those technical things about the game, is not to know cricket. James knew cricket - in all its facets. And he embraced its inherent beauty, as a sport that revealed itself as high art.

C.L.R. James would have loved to have known Shane Warne, in whom he would have seen an artisan's skill transformed to high art and beauty. Indeed, Warne, the Australian legspinner who last week announced that he will retire from Test cricket at the end of the current Ashes series and who on Boxing Day became the first bowler to take over 700 wicket in Tests, is an artist of high order.

Warne's place in the pantheon of great bowlers is not in doubt for those who view these things in a purely quantitative sense. The statistics tell that story.

In 144 Tests up to the first innings of the current match at the MCG, Warne has taken 704 wickets at 25.37 runs apiece, at a rate of a wicket every 57.4 balls. For a legspinner, his economy rate is phenomenal, with only 2.65 runs being hit off him per over.

Warne's one-day international figures are equally impressive: 293 wickets in 194 matches at 25.74 each and an economy rate of 4.25.

Yet such figures, while critical, are hardly what really defines this slightly-overweight cricketer, with his peroxide-induced platinum blond mop, and brings him to greatness. Warne almost single-handedly redefined the skill of legspin bowling and in the process, made it art. For how else could that delivery, faced by Mike Gatting in 1993, and turned for miles - and called the ball of the century - be described as anything but art? And there were many others of similar potency: legbreaks, top-spinners, flippers and, sparingly, googlies.

Shane Warne, in the chubby frame, possesses the biomechanics that enable him, with consistent deliberateness, to do as he wishs while bowling. And he makes the cricket ball an extension of himself so that a less than streamlined bowling action is far from distracting.

Warne possesses something else that gives potency to his skill, helping to lift his skill to that higher order: personality. Bold, brash, raucous, his on-field verve and off-field indiscretions define him as human, capable of great deeds.

Shane Warne, as cricketer, for those who know cricket, transcends place, time, or nationality. For as James said: "What matters in cricket, as in all the arts, is not the finer point but what everyone with some knowledge of the elements can see and feel."