Australian spin great Shane Warne died at the age of 52 after a suspected heart attack in Thailand on Friday.
Australian spin great Shane Warne died at the age of 52 after a suspected heart attack in Thailand on Friday. The news of Warne’s death shocked the world of cricket and tributes poured in from across the globe for one of the greatest ever cricketers. Warne, the second highest wicket taker in the history of Test cricket, behind Muttiah Muralitharan, had 708 scalps to his name. He played 194 ODIs for Australia and took 293 wickets in the format. As a batter, he scored 3,154 runs in his Test career and 1,018 runs in ODIs. The leg-spinner took a total of 1001 wickets and was the first-ever bowler to scale the peak of 1,000 international wickets.
Warne’s international career began against India when he was handed his debut in the third Test of the five-match series between the two sides in Australia.
Playing in Sydney, Warne, then a 22-year-old, would go on to pick just one wicket in the match – that of Ravi Shastri who scored a double century.
Warne would score 20 with the bat in the first innings and was unbeaten on 1 in the second as the hosts just about managed to avoid defeat.
Incidentally, this was India’s best performance in that series as Australia claimed victory in four other matches to seal the series 4-0.
The first ever over Warne bowled in his international career was to Sanjay Manjrekar. Here is a video of Warne bowling to Manjrekar on his debut.
It was the beginning of one of the greatest careers in international cricket. While Warne had a rather uneventful start to his career in Sydney in 1992, he didn’t take long to make his mark in the sport.
