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Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022), nicknamed Warnie, was an Australian international cricketer whose career ran from 1992 to 2007. Widely considered to be one of the greatest cricketers of all time, Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a lower-order right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire, the Melbourne Stars and Australia. Warne also played for and coached the Rajasthan Royals, including captaining the team to victory in the inaugural season of the IPL. He made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets, and set the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket, a record he held until 2007. Warne was a useful lower-order batsman who scored more than 3,000 Test runs, with a highest score of 99. Warne was a member of the Australian team that won the 1999 Cricket World Cup. He retired from international cricket at the end of Australia's 2006–07 Ashes series victory over England. Warne revolutionised cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, then regarded as a dying art. After retirement, he regularly worked as a cricket commentator and for charities and endorsed commercial products. During his career, Warne was involved in off-field scandals including a ban from cricket for testing positive for a prohibited substance, a colourful personal life and interactions with gambling figures. Warne died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 52, while on holiday in Thailand. After his death, many tributes and memorials were made to Warne, both in his home city of Melbourne and elsewhere in the cricketing world. Warne was posthumously appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his service to cricket. Early life Warne was born in Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne, on 13 September 1969, the son of Brigitte and Keith Warne. His mother was German. He attended Hampton High School from Grades 7–9 before being offered a sports scholarship to attend Mentone Grammar, where he spent his final three years of school. Early career Warne's first representative honours came in the 1983–84 season when he represented University of Melbourne Cricket Club in the Victorian Cricket Association's under-16 Dowling Shield competition. He bowled a mixture of leg-spin and off-spin, and was a handy lower-order batsman. The following season, Warne joined St Kilda Cricket Club, which is located near his home suburb Black Rock. He started in the lower elevens and, over a number of seasons, progressed to the first eleven. During the cricket off-season in 1987, Warne played five games of Australian rules football for St Kilda Football Club's under-19 team. In 1988, Warne again played for the St Kilda Football Club's under-19 team before being promoted to the reserves team, one step below professional level. Following the 1988 Victorian Football League season, St Kilda delisted Warne and he began to focus solely on cricket. In 1989, Warne had a six-month stint in Bristol, playing for the Imperial Cricket Club in the Western League, where he took 49 wickets at 15.22. While playing in Bristol, Warne lived in the attic of the pavilion of the cricket club. In 1990, Warne was chosen to train at the Australian Cricket Academy in Adelaide. Warne struggled with the discipline at the Academy and left following disagreements with management. In 1991, Warne joined Accrington Cricket Club of the Lancashire League as their professional player for that year's cricket season. After initially struggling in English conditions, he had a good season as a bowler, taking 73 wickets at 15.4 runs each but scored only 329 runs at an average of 15. The committee at Accrington decided not to re-engage Warne for the 1992 season because they expected their professional to contribute as both a batsman and bowler. Warne was recalled to the Australian Cricket Academy in 1992, where he honed his leg spin abilities under former Australian Test spinner Terry Jenner. Jenner is credited with harnessing Warne's raw talents and coaching him to become more professional in his preparation and approach to the game. Domestic career Warne made his first-class cricket debut on 15 February 1991, taking 0/61 and 1/41 for Victoria against Western Australia at Junction Oval in Melbourne. Warne captained Victoria in the 1999-00 season and was appointed again for the 2002-03 season. Over his career, Warne made 76 appearances for Victoria and claimed 161 first-class wickets at 34.72 and 43 List A wickets at 27.93. Warne signed a $400,000 contract to play for Hampshire County Cricket Club in England for the 2000 season. He returned to Hampshire as the captain for the seasons between 2004 and 2007. Warne made 139 total appearances for Hampshire. For Hampshire he scored his only two first-class centuries and took 276 wickets at an average of 25.58. He also claimed 120 wickets at 19.72 List A wickets for Hampshire. International career Early international career (1991–1993) Warne was selected for the Australia B team, which toured Zimbabwe in September 1991. In the second tour match at Harare Sports Club, Warne recorded his first first-class score of five wickets or more in an innings when he took 7/49 in the second innings, helping Australia B to a nine-wicket win. In December 1991, upon returning to Australia, Warne took 3/14 and 4/42 for Australia A against a touring West Indian side. Peter Taylor, the incumbent spinner in the Australian Test team, had taken only one wicket in the first two Tests, so Warne was brought into the team for the third Test against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground a week later. Warne had played seven first-class matches before making his Test debut for Australia. He took 1/150 (Ravi Shastri caught by Dean Jones for 206) off 45 overs. Warne took 0/78 in the fourth Test in Adelaide, recording overall figures of 1/228 for the series, and was dropped for the fifth Test on the pace-friendly WACA Ground in Perth. Australia toured Sri Lanka in mid-1992. Warne's poor form continued in the first innings against Sri Lanka at Colombo, in which he recorded 0/107. On 22 August 1992, however, Warne took the last three Sri Lankan wickets without conceding a run in the second innings, leading to a second-innings collapse and contributing to a 16-run Australian win. Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga commented in an interview; "a bowler with Test average of more than 300 came and snatched the victory from our hands". Despite his match-winning spell, Warne was left out of the second Sri Lanka Test before taking 0/40 in the third-and-final Test of the series. Warne was again left out of the First Test against the West Indies in the 1992–93 Australian season. Greg Matthews played in Warne's place; despite Australia being in a strong position on the final day, they could not dismiss the West Indies on a turning surface. Warne was recalled for the Second Test in Melbourne, a Boxing Day Test in which he took 7/52 in a match-winning performance in the sec.... Discover the Shane Johnston popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Shane Johnston books.