Shane Warne was the undeniable spin king, but his razor-sharp tongue proved to an equally venomous weapon.

Warne took more than 1,000 international wickets for Australia, with many rivals falling victim to his wizardry more than once.

Warne was a world-beater with the ball and his sledging game matched itGETTY

But there was one man who simply could not remove himself from the web Warne had entangled him in.

South African batsman Daryll Cullinan did not boast the same star power as Warne, but remained an outstanding batsman in his own right.

Hailed as a prodigy for his exploits as a schoolboy, where he became the youngest South African to smack a first-class century, Cullinan went on to play 70 Tests for the Proteas and retired with a highly commendable average of 44.21.

But there are seven Tests that will haunt Cullinan for the rest of his days, with Warne the prime antagonist.

Across those matches, Cullinan averaged a measly 12.75 from 153 runs and lost his wicket to Warne on four of the 12 occasions he was dismissed.

What compounded Cullinan’s misery further was Warne’s constant chatter, which he rarely had a response to.

“Certain batsmen are definitely vulnerable,” Warne wrote in his 2001 autobiography.

“Daryll Cullinan more than most. Usually when I give him a serve he just looks down at the ground.”

Warne would sometimes greet Cullinan in the middle by asking him if he had the shower running pending an early exit.

Other times he’d simply tell the South African exactly how many balls it would take to dismiss him.

Daryll Cullinan proved to be Shane Warne’s bunnyGetty

There was no other Protea Warne wanted to snare the wicket of more.

“I didn’t care how many I got, so long as I got Cullinan,” Warne said during a post-match press conference in 1997.

The rivalry came to an explosive head when South Africa toured Australia during the 1997-98 summer.

Warne celebrates taking the wicket of Cullinan yet againGetty

Prior to the series, it emerged Cullinan engaged a sports psychologist to help banish his Warne demons and bat in Australia that summer like he had done against other rivals.

But Warne was probably the last player that Cullinan would have wanted to learn about his therapeutic sessions.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Warne said.

“I knew Daryll was a bit fragile at times, but never imagined he would go to a shrink to learn how to read a googly.”

Cullinan may have hoped he kept the receipt for those sessions after the first Test of the series in Melbourne.

Warne was a constant thorn in the side for South Africa when they played AustraliaGetty

Warne recalled: “I let him take guard before saying, ‘Daryll, I’ve waited so long for this moment and I’m going to send you straight back to that leather couch.”

Eight balls later and Cullinan had been sent back to the pavilion for a duck and was subsequently dropped from the team for the remainder of the series.

However, Cullinan eventually managed to fire a linguistic haymaker of his own in Warne’s direction.

The next time they met, Warne revealed the sledge that even he, a master of verbal jousting, could only appreciate.

“I was fielding at slip as he came out to bat and I said, ‘Now Daryll, don’t you dare get out, I’ve been waiting four years for this opportunity to get you again,” Warne said.

Warne was never shy of giving an opponent a verbal send-off when he got them outGetty

“He turned around to me and said, ‘It looks like you’ve spent it eating too.’

“I said, ‘Not bad from you Daryll. Not bad. Pretty good.”

In an interview with Cricinfo in 2015, Cullinan conceded ‘Warne was too good for me’, but took the late spinner’s fixation on taking his wicket as a ‘compliment’.

Warne would later offer an apology, if you could call it that, to Cullinan in 2018.

“Daryll, it was an absolute pleasure to smash you and keep knocking you over,” Warne told The Dan Nicoll Show.

The Dan Nicholl Show on YouTubeWarne issued somewhat of an apology to Cullinan for all the years of torment[/caption]

“I really enjoyed every minute of it and if only you’d have come and sat next to me and had a beer instead of hiding somewhere, I might not have done it to you again.

“But I do apologise for not sitting next to you and having a beer. But I must say, I enjoyed it immensely.”

Tragically, Warne passed away in March 2022 when he suffered a heart attack on holiday in Thailand.

A loveable larrikin, he will be forever remembered for his witty remarks at the crease that would sting but never overstep the unwritten boundaries.

But for Cullinan, Warne will always be the man that had his number, no matter how many times he tried to avoid it.