Sentinel Digital Desk
The first One Day game Warne ever attended was one of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cup matches at VFL Park. The first Test was the 1982 Melbourne affair which Australia lost to England by 3 runs.
When he debuted for Australia, against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground in February, 1992, Ravi Shastri and a young bloke named Tendulkar showed him that Test cricket wasn’t child’s play. His figures were far from impressive as he picked up just a solitary wicket at the expense of 150 runs.
Courtsey the successful tours of New Zealand and England he took 71 wickets in 1993, then a record for a spin bowler in a calendar year.
He collected 12 wickets in the 1996 World Cup, including a match winning 4-36 in the semi-final against West Indies. Australia though went on to loose the finals to Sri Lanka.
Warne finished the 1999 World cup as the highest wicket taker as Australia lifted the trophy for the second time.
Controversies and Shane Warne were simply inseparable. When Warne was playing for Hampshire in 2000, reports emerged that he had sent lewd text messages to an English nurse.
In 2007, Cricket Australia and Sri Lanka Cricket decided to name the Australia- Sri Lanka Test cricket series, as the “Warne-Muralidaran Trophy” in honour of Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidaran.
When he played his first Test match, against India at Sydney, Warne weighed as heavy as 97 kilos.
Before India’s match against England in the 2011 World Cup, Warne tweeted – “My prediction, a tie.” And to everybody’s surprise, he got it right. Next day, the Australian channel Fox Sport’s headline ran, Genius or Match-fixer?
On New Zealand tour in 2000 he became Australia’s highest ever wicket taker in Tests, eclipsing his hero, Dennis Lillee’s benchmark of 355.
His nicknames are “Warnie”, “Hollywood” or “Baron of Baked Beans”, depending upon the occasion.
In 1998 Warne faced controversy when it was revealed that he and fellow Australian cricketer Mark Waugh had taken bribes from an Indian bookmaker four years earlier. The pair claimed they gave only pitch information and weather forecasts. The two were secretly fined by the Australian Cricket Board soon after the incident came to light.