Former Australian cricketer, and possibly the greatest leg-spinner in the history of the game, Shane Warne passed away on Friday, 4 March.
He was 52 and is survived by his three children with former wife Simone Callahan.
Warne passed away in Koh Samui in Thailand due to a suspected heart attack and his management released a statement, saying that his family has asked for privacy.
"It is with great sadness we advise that Shane Keith Warne passed away of a suspected heart attack in Koh Samui, Thailand today, Friday 4th March," the statement read. "Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived."
"The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course."
Earlier in the day, Warne had tweeted condoling the death of Rod Marsh, another Australian cricket great.
Warne played 145 Tests between 1992 and 2007 for Australia, and picked 708 wickets and was the first to reach 700 wickets in the longest format. In 194 ODIs, he finished with 293 wickets.
In Test cricket, he is said to have bowled the ball of the century, when he spun it big from outside leg stump to knock over Mike Gatting’s off stump in 1993. It was his first delivery in England in Test cricket. Warne would do something similar to Andrew Strauss at Edgbaston, a little over a decade later.
'Warney' as he was famously called was one of the true superstars of the game and single-handedly revived the art of leg-spin with a dash of glamour and some more attacking intent, with a tactical brain that matched no one else.
His Test debut however was rather unlike the rest of his career, when he played India and bagged just one wicket for 150 runs. After that, against West Indies, in Melbourne, Warne really got going with 7 big wickets in the Boxing Day Test in 1992-93.
“MCC is deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Honorary Life Member and World Cricket committee member, Shane Warne. Shane was one of the finest cricketers ever to have played the game. Our thoughts are with his family and friends,” the MCC said.
Warne was also part of the 2005 Ashes series, which is considered to be among the most intensely contested set of games in the modern era. England had won the series 2-1 but the battle went down to the wire with Warne taking 40 wickets, the most by a country mile among the two sides. Such was his effect on England, that the batters were traumatised by his genius for the next 12 years as Australia held on to the Ashes. Warne took 195 Test wickets against England, no bowler has taken more wickets against one team.
While Warne had the England batters’ number, his battles with the great Sachin Tendulkar too are well documented, with the Master Blaster getting the better of him more often than not. Among the most remembered and talked about battle between the two came in Chennai, when the Australian was on his first tour of India. Sachin attacked him with all his might, leaving Australia dumbfounded.
Sachin and Warne would have another memorable battle in Sharjah in 1998, when India and Australia played out some memorable games.
Warne was also part of the Australian squad that won the World Cup in 1999 in the UK when they defeated Pakistan in the final. He picked 20 wickets in that tournament. He had also played the 1996 edition in the sub-continent. Warne however, did not play the 2003 World Cup in South Africa as he had been sent home a day before the tournament started after he failed a drug test. Cricket Australia found him guilty and banned him for a year. Warne did not feature in the World Cup squad for 2007, when Australia won their fourth title.
While most careers would have been dealt a big blow due to the ban, Warne returned strongly with four five-wicket hauls in a row to lead Australia to a memorable 3-0 series win in Sri Lanka in March 2004.
In the IPL, Shane Warne is fondly remembered for captaining the Rajasthan Royals to the title in the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2008. They beat the MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings. He was 37 at the time.
He retired from international cricket in 2007 after Australia's 5-0 Ashes win against England at home, also retiring from first-class and List A cricket later that year with Hampshire. Warne continued to play T20 franchise cricket until retiring from all formats in 2013, after which he began a career as a commentator and also coached briefly in the shortest format.
Warne led Australia 11 times in ODIs but never captained the Test team, with batter Ricky Ponting replacing Steve Waugh.
Off the field, Warne and controversy had plenty of eventful meetings, with the revelations around his personal life often making the front pages. In 1995, he and Mark Waugh had also been fined by the board for giving information to an Indian bookmaker during the previous year's tour of Sri Lanka. Warne himself had conceded that his life was like a 'soap opera'.
All of his cricketing achievements aside, he was also a professional poker player. Warne also lent his name to a charitable causes and recently promoted a feature-length documentary on his life entitled 'Shane'.
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