Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international Hall of Fame cricketer who played from 1991 to 2007 as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australia. He is widely acknowledged to have been one of the sport's greatest-ever bowlers. He made 145 Test appearances, taking 708 wickets. Warne's 708 Test wickets was the record for the most wickets taken by any bowler in Test cricket until 2007. A useful lower-order batsman, Warne scored more than 3,000 Test runs, with a  highest score of 99. As well as playing internationally, Warne played domestic cricket in Australia and also for Hampshire in England. Warne retired from international cricket at the end of Australia's 2006–07 Ashes series victory over England. He played in the first four seasons of the Indian Premier League for the Rajasthan Royals, where he was a player-coach who also captained the team. During his career he was involved in scandals off the field, including a ban from cricket for testing positive for a prohibited substance, charges of bringing the game into disrepute and sexual indiscretions. Warne revolutionised  cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, which had come to be regarded as a dying art. After retirement, he regularly worked as a cricket commentator. He also worked for charitable organisations and endorsed commercial products. In recognition of his skill, a statue of him bowling was placed outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He was also honoured at a state memorial service at the ground. Early life. Warne was born in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy 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 then Victorian Cricket Association 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 the St Kilda Cricket Club near his home suburb of 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 the St Kilda Football Club's under-19 team. In 1988, Warne once again played for the St Kilda Football Club's under-19 team before being upgraded to the reserves team, one step below professional level. Following the 1988 Victorian Football League season, Warne was delisted by St Kilda and began to focus solely on cricket. He was later chosen to train at the Australian Cricket Academy (AIS) in 1990 in Adelaide. Warne joined Accrington Cricket Club of the Lancashire League as their professional player  for the 1991 season. After initially struggling in English conditions, he went on to have 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 him for the 1992 season, as they expected their professional to contribute as both a batsman and bowler. Warne made his first-class cricket debut on 15 February 1991, taking 0/61 and 1/41 for Victoria against Western Australia at the Junction Oval in Melbourne. He was then 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 haul 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. Upon returning to Australia, Warne took 3/14 and 4/42 for Australia A against a touring West Indian side in December 1991. The incumbent spinner in the Australian Test team, Peter Taylor, 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. International career. Early international career (1992–1993). Warne had played in just seven first-class matches before making his debut at Test level for Australia. He had an undistinguished Test debut when called into the Australian team in January 1992 for a Test against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He took 1/150 (Ravi Shastri caught by Dean Jones for 206) off 45 overs. He 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. His poor form continued in the first innings against Sri Lanka at Colombo, in which he recorded 0/107. However, on 22 August 1992, he took the last three Sri Lankan wickets without conceding a run in the second innings precipitating a second innings collapse and contributing to a remarkable 16-run Australian win. Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga commented in an interview that, '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 and despite Australia being in a strong position on the final day, was unable to dismiss the tourists on a turning surface. Warne was thus recalled for the Second Test in Melbourne, a Boxing Day Test, where he took 7/52 in a match-winning performance in the second innings. Path to 300 Test wickets (1993–1999). In 1993, Warne was selected for Australia's Ashes tour  of England. He was the leading wicket taker for the six-Test series, with 34. His first ball of the series was written into the history books as the "Ball of the Century", bowling the experienced English batsman Mike Gatting with a ball that turned from well outside leg stump to clip the off bail. He took 71 Test wickets in 1993, then a record for a spin bowler in a calendar year. New Zealand batsmen contributed significantly to his tally. He took 17 wickets in Australia's tour of New Zealand early in the year, tying Danny Morrison as  the top wicket-taker for the series with 17. When New Zealand toured Australia for three Tests in November and December, Warne took 18 more and was named player of the series. Warne featured in South Africa's tour of Australia in 1993–94 and Australia's return tour in March 1994. In the second Test of South Africa's tour, held at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Warne took ten wickets in a Test for the first time in his career. His 7/56 in the first innings and 5/72 in the second was not enough to secure victory for Australia; Warne  was part of an Australian batting collapse on the final day of the Test that handed South Africa the win. He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in the 1994 "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack". Australia sought to retain the Ashes when England toured for a five Test series in 1994–95. Warne took a career-best 8/71 in the second innings of the first Test at the Gabba, before going on to take 27 wickets in the five-Test series. In the Second Test, a Boxing Day Test at Warne's home ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, he  took his first and only Test hat-trick, dismissing tail-enders Phil DeFreitas, Darren Gough and Devon Malcolm in successive balls, the last of which was caught by David Boon. He also grabbed his 150th test wicket, a caught-and-bowled off Alec Stewart. However, it was with the bat that Warne ultimately secured the Ashes for Australia. In the Third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, he and fellow tail-ender Tim May survived the final 19 overs on the fifth day in fading light to secure a draw and a 2–0 series lead that meant Australia would retain  the Ashes regardless of the result of the fourth and fifth Tests. Later in 1995, he toured the West Indies, taking 15 wickets over four Tests as Australia defeated the West Indies in a Test series for the first time in almost 20 years. In the summer of 1995–96, Australia played home series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He took 11 wickets in the first Test against Pakistan but broke his toe in the second. Selectors included him in the squad for the third Test just days later to give him the chance to prove his fitness; he did so  by taking four wickets in Pakistan's first innings and another four in their second to be named the player of the series. Warne was to be a key member of Australia's squad for the 1996 Cricket World Cup, held in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Australia qualified for the final, with Warne having taken 12 wickets, including a man-of-the-match 4/36 in the semi-final against the West Indies. Ahead of the final against Sri Lanka, Australian captain Mark Taylor publicly declared that Warne was not "vital" to his team, emphasising that Warne alone could not  win the World Cup. Warne conceded 58 runs for no wickets in the final; Australia lost the match to first-time champions Sri Lanka. The West Indies toured Australia for a five-Test series in the summer of 1996–97. Warne took 22 wickets in the series, and a further 11 in Australia's three-Test tour of South Africa early in 1997. In the northern summer, Warne returned to England with the Australian team to attempt to retain the Ashes. After struggling for form early in the tour, Warne took 24 wickets at an average of 24.04 as Australia won  the six-Test series 3–2. The following Australian summer (1997–98) saw a continued flow of wickets for Warne. He picked up 19 in New Zealand's three-Test series in Australia, before taking 20 wickets in three Tests against South Africa. In the second of those three, he took five wickets in the first innings and six in the second, while becoming the second Australian after Dennis Lillee to take 300 Test wickets. At the beginning of summer, Australian media had criticised Warne for his weight; however, "The Australian" wrote that he was one of Australia's three most "influential  cricketers (with Donald Bradman and Lillee). Journalist and former English cricketer Derek Pringle observed as Warne passed the 300 Test wicket mark at the age of 28: we are in the presence of true greatness and not some pretender to the great figures in the game's history". Later in 1998, Warne was a member of Australia's touring squad of India. Finding Indian food not to his liking, he had spaghetti and baked beans flown in from Australia. With Australia's two top pace bowlers Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie missing the tour due to injury, Warne shouldered more  of the bowling burden. He took 10 wickets, but conceding 54 runs each, going for 0/147 in India's only innings of the second and series-winning Test in Calcutta. Warne's dismissal of Rahul Dravid in the first innings of the final test at Bangalore took him past Lance Gibbs' tally of 309 wickets making him the most successful spinner in Test Cricket. Australia lost the series, breaking a run of nine Test series victories. In early December 1998, the Australian Cricket Board revealed that three years earlier it had fined Warne and Mark Waugh for accepting money from  a bookmaker (allegedly a man named John who was Sri Lankan, according to Shane Warne in one of his autobiographies) for giving information about pitch and weather conditions. Warne did not play international cricket again until the fifth Test of the Ashes series in Australia in January 1999, suffering a shoulder injury. He missed Australia's tour of Pakistan and the first four Ashes Tests. At the time, he was also at the centre of the John the bookmaker controversy. Warne's extended absence from the Australian team gave his understudy Stuart MacGill the opportunity to play in his place . MacGill responded by taking 15 wickets in three Tests against Pakistan (the most for any bowler in the series) and another series-high 27 wickets against England. Warne and MacGill bowled in tandem upon Warne's return to the team for the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where MacGill took 12 wickets and Warne two. Vice-captaincy of Australia (1999–2000). The Ashes series was the last for Australian captain Mark Taylor, who retired. Steve Waugh was appointed as Taylor's replacement, while Warne was promoted to the position of vice-captain. However, he was dropped from the  Test team during Australia's tour of the West Indies in early 1999. Warne took just two wickets in the first three Tests of the series, leading to calls from the Australian media for his removal from the team. He was replaced for the final Test by off-spinner Colin Miller. Miller and MacGill took eight wickets between them as Australia won the Test to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy. Warne's form recovered in the ODI series against the West Indies, and he was selected to play in the 1999 World Cup in the United Kingdom. Just before the  start of the 1999 World Cup, he was given a fine and a two-match suspended ban by the International Cricket Council for talking to a newspaper about Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga, saying: "There is plenty of animosity between Arjuna and myself. I don't like him and I'm not in a club of one". Australia were seeking to win their first Cricket World Cup since 1987. Warne took 12 wickets in the preliminary phases of the tournament as Australia qualified for a semi-final against South Africa. While the match became notable for the dramatic fashion in  which it finished, Warne was the man of the match, dismissing four key South African batsmen: Herschelle Gibbs, Gary Kirsten, Hansie Cronje and Jacques Kallis. Australia faced Pakistan in the tournament's Final. Pakistan batted first, and were all out for only 132; Warne took 4/33. Australia chased down the target comfortably to win the World Cup. Warne was the tournament's joint top wicket-taker with Geoff Allott and was named the man of the match in the Final. After his World Cup performances, Warne was retained as Australia's vice-captain for the tours of Sri Lanka and  Zimbabwe later in 1999. The following Australian summer, he played in all Tests of the series against Pakistan and India. He reached his highest score with the bat in the first Test against Pakistan in Brisbane, with 86, before matching that score in the first Test against India in Adelaide the following month. Warne's performances in the Brisbane Test were overshadowed by the Joe the Cameraman controversy, in which a jibe about the abilities of Australian bowler Scott Muller was picked up by an on-field microphone during the match. A Channel Nine cameraman subsequently confessed to making the  can't bowl, can't throw remark that many had believed was made by Warne. Warne took 18 wickets over the six summer Tests and Australia won both series 3–0. He then took another 15 wickets in Australia's 3–0 sweep of New Zealand in March 2000. In the first Test of the series at Eden Park, he surpassed Dennis Lillee (with 355 wickets) as Australia's leading ever wicket-taker. Warne joined English county side Hampshire in 2000 and played for them during the year's English summer. Reports emerged that during the county season he had repeatedly sent  lewd SMS messages to an English nurse. In August 2000, the Australian Cricket Board removed him as Australia's vice-captain, citing his history of indiscretions off the field. The board's decision was contrary to the wishes of the team's selectors, including captain Steve Waugh. Warne was replaced as vice-captain by Adam Gilchrist. Yet, he was awarded the Men's ODI Player of the Year at the Allan Border Medal ceremony by Cricket Australia in 2000. Wickets and injuries (2001–2003). Warne missed the entire Australian summer of 2000–01 with a finger injury, and found himself battling Stuart  MacGill and an in-form Colin Miller to be selected for Australia's tour of India in early 2001. MacGill was ultimately the spinner left out. Warne took 10 wickets over the three-Test series at an average of 50.50. His Indian spin counterpart Harbhajan Singh was the man of the series with 32 wickets at an average of 17.03. Australia lost the series 2–1. In the northern summer of 2001, Warne made his third Ashes tour and took 31 wickets in the five-Test series, which Australia won 4–1. He took three five-wicket hauls in the series. In  the final Test at The Oval he took 11 wickets across both innings, including the 400th wicket of his Test career (Alec Stewart). He became the sixth person and the first Australian in the history of cricket to reach the milestone. In the 2001–02 Australian summer, Australia played home series against New Zealand and against South Africa. Warne took six wickets in three Tests against New Zealand, and in the third Test in Perth made his highest career score with the bat in international cricket. He was caught at mid-wicket off the bowling of Daniel Vettori (off what was  later revealed to be a no-ball) while on 99 runs, one run short of a maiden Test century. He took 17 wickets in the three Tests against South Africa (more than any other player) including a five-wicket haul (5/113) in the first innings of the first Test. Warne was again the leading wicket-taker when Australia played a three-Test series in South Africa in February and March 2002, with 20 dismissals. In February 2002, Ricky Ponting replaced Steve Waugh as captain of Australia's ODI squad. The elevation of Ponting, five years younger than Warne, appeared to  extinguish any prospect of Warne ever being appointed to captain Australia. Australia played a three-Test series against Pakistan in October 2002, held in neutral Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates. Warne, who had lost weight over the previous months, took 27 wickets, was named the player of the series, and was man of the match in the first Test (with 11 wickets) and the third Test (with eight wickets). He returned to Australia for the Ashes series against England, starting in November 2002. He scored a half-century (57) with the bat in the first Test, before taking  11 wickets in the first three Tests of the series. However, in an ODI in December 2002, he suffered a shoulder injury. The injury not only ruled him out of the remainder of the Ashes series, but put him in doubt for the World Cup, due to commence in February 2003. Ban from cricket (2003). In February 2003, a day before the start of the World Cup, Warne was sent home after a drug test during a one-day series in Australia returned a positive result for a banned diuretic. Warne said that he took only one of what he  called a "fluid tablet" (the prescription drug Moduretic) given to him by his mother to improve his appearance. A committee established by the Australian Cricket Board found Warne guilty of breaching the board's drug code and imposed a one-year ban from organised cricket. At the time, Warne took the view that the ban imposed would lengthen his Test playing career, after already having announced that he was going to retire from one-day internationals after the 2003 World Cup, although the ban led him to briefly reconsider that decision which he ultimately stuck with. That Warne was allowed  to play in charity matches while serving his one-year ban was criticised by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) although WADA, in turn, was criticised by Warne for interfering in the matter. During his suspension, Warne was hired by the Nine Network, Australia's main free-to-air cricket broadcaster, as a TV commentator. During the winter of 2003, he worked for the St Kilda Australian rules football club in an unpaid consultancy role, after the Australian Football League banned him from holding an official club position because of his drugs ban. Return to cricket (2004–2006). Warne returned to  competitive cricket following his ban in February 2004. In March, in the first Test of a three-Test series against Sri Lanka in Galle, he became the second cricketer after Courtney Walsh to take 500 Test wickets. Warne took five wickets in each innings of the first and second Tests; a further six wickets in the third Test saw him named the player of the series. He broke the record for most career wickets in Test cricket on 15 October 2004 during the second Test of Australia's series against India at Chennai. His dismissal of Irfan Pathan, caught at  slip by Matthew Hayden, saw him overtake his Sri Lankan rival, Muttiah Muralitharan, with 533 wickets. Muralitharan, who was injured at the time, had taken the record himself from Courtney Walsh five months earlier. Australia won the series 2–1; it was Australia's first series win in India since 1969. Warne's 14 wickets at an average of 30.07 was a marked improvement on his previous performances in India, when in six Tests he had taken 20 wickets at an average of 52 runs each. For his performances in 2004, he was named in the World Test XI by the  ICC. On 11 August 2005 at Old Trafford, in the Third Ashes Test, he became the first bowler in history to take 600 Test wickets. In 2005, Warne broke the record for the number of wickets in a calendar year, with 96 wickets. His ferocious competitiveness was a feature of the 2005 Ashes series, when he took 40 wickets at an average of 19.92 and scored 249 runs. Warne shared player of the series honour with England's Andrew Flintoff. For his performances in 2005, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC. International retirement (2006–2007). Warne  began the 2006–07 Ashes series with an indifferent Test in Brisbane and a poor first innings showing in Adelaide, where he failed to take a wicket. However, his second innings performance, including bowling Kevin Pietersen around the legs, triggered England's fifth-day collapse and Australia's victory. Warne again bowled well in the second innings in the third Test, and took the final wicket of Monty Panesar as Australia regained the Ashes. On 21 December 2006, Warne announced that he would be retiring at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes series at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). In  his second-last Test, he took his 700th Test wicket on 26 December 2006 by bowling English batsman Andrew Strauss out at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in what was his final appearance at the ground. This was the first occasion that a player had taken 700 Test wickets. The wicket was described as a "classic Warne dismissal" to which the crowd of 89,155 gave a standing ovation. Warne's final Test was held at the same venue as his first, 15 years earlier: the SCG. Warne ended England's first innings by trapping Monty Panesar lbw for a duck and  his 1000th total international wicket. His final Test wicket was that of all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, stumped by Adam Gilchrist. He is one of only two bowlers to have taken 1000+ wickets in international cricket, the other being Muttiah Muralitharan. For his performances in 2006, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC and Cricinfo. He was also awarded the Men's Test Player of the Year at the Allan Border Medal ceremony by Cricket Australia in 2006. Twenty20 career (2008–2013). After his retirement from international cricket, Warne was signed as the captain for Rajasthan Royals  in the Indian Premier League 2008, fetching US$450,000 in the pre-season player auction. He led the Royals to victory in the first season of the competition. He continued as captain of the Royals for a further four seasons, the 2011 season being his last with the franchise. Warne was signed as a player for the Melbourne Stars in Australia's inaugural Big Bash League (BBL) in November 2011. The Stars qualified for the semi-finals of the tournament, and Warne took seven wickets in eight matches at an economy rate of 6.74 runs conceded per over. In 2013 , Warne was fined $4500 and banned for one match for using obscene language, making "inappropriate physical contact with a player or official" (Marlon Samuels) and "showing serious dissent at an umpire's decision" during a BBL match against the Melbourne Renegades. In July 2013, he officially retired from all formats confirming that he would no longer captain the Melbourne Stars in the BBL. In July 2014, he captained the Rest of the World side in the Bicentenary Celebration match at Lord's. In February 2018, the Rajasthan Royals appointed Warne as their team mentor for the IPL 2018. Wider  influence on cricket. Warne is widely considered as one of the greatest bowlers in cricket history. Warne revolutionised cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, which many cricket followers had come to regard as a dying art due to the difficulty of bowling the deliveries accurately. Warne helped overturn the domination of cricket by fast bowling that had prevailed for two decades before his debut. In the early 1970s, Australia's fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson had dominated cricket. From around 1977 until the early 1990s, the West Indies had lost only one (ill-tempered and controversial ) Test series with a bowling attack almost exclusively comprising four fast bowlers. From the early 1990s, with the West Indies on the wane, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram of Pakistan were assuming the mantle of the world's most feared fast-bowling combination. It was in this context that Warne's bowling became significant. His dominance, particularly of English and South African batsmen, provided an alternative skill to cricket watchers. Many of his most spectacular performances occurred in Ashes series against England; in particular, the famous "Gatting Ball", otherwise known as the "Ball of the Century", which spun sharply and  bowled a bemused Mike Gatting in the 1993 Ashes series. Conversely, he had struggled against India, particularly against Sachin Tendulkar: his bowling average against India was 47.18 runs per wicket, compared with his overall average of 25. In fairness to Warne, other foreign spinners have also struggled against India in recent years; Warne's contemporary off-spinner rival, Muttiah Muralitharan, for instance, has a much higher bowling average (45.45) in Tests played in India than his overall Test figures. He also was hit for the most sixes by the time he retired, but Warne did not like to be hit  for singles, because he had to plan for two batsmen at the same over. Playing style. Warne combined the ability to turn the ball prodigiously, even on unhelpful pitches, with regular accuracy and a variation of deliveries (notable among these being the flipper). In the latter stages of his career, variation was less evident despite regular press conferences announcing a "new" delivery for each series he participated in. When Warne retired, the Australian journalist Gideon Haigh wrote that: "It was said of Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble: the same is true of Warne and spin  bowling." Warne did this by having a relaxed "two finger up, two down grip" with the ball not hitting the top part of the palm. Warne was a fierce and dramatic competitor. Gideon Haigh wrote about what he called the pageantry and measured theatricality of Warne, such as his exaggerated appeals, intimidation of batters, sledging, flirting with umpires and time wasting, all of which added to his competitiveness. Warne was quoted as saying that "part of the art of bowling spin is to make the batsman think that something special is happening even when it isn't". Warne was an  effective lower-order batter, once famously dismissed for 99 with a reckless shot on what, it was later shown, was a no-ball. Warne has scored the most Test runs without having scored a century, with two scores in the nineties being his best efforts (99 and 91). He is also third overall in the most international Test ducks. Of players who have batted in more than 175 Test innings, his proportion of dismissals by being bowled out is the lowest, at under seven percent. Warne was a successful slip fielder, with his 125 catches making him 19th in the  list of most catches as a fielder in Test cricket history. Performance analysis. Warne was the third-highest five-wicket haul taker in the international arena after Muttiah Muralitharan and Richard Hadlee. He took 37 Test fivers and a single ODI fiver, along with 10 Test ten-wicket hauls. In Test cricket, he scored more runs than any other player who never made a century. Commentator. After retirement Warne became a cricket commentator. On 13 July 2005, the Nine Network announced it would not renew Warne's commentating contract, worth around A$300,000 annually, due to incidents in his private  life. He later rejoined Nine in 2008 and was a member of its commentary team until Nine lost the broadcasting rights in 2018. He was also signed by Sky Sports in 2009 and Fox Cricket in 2018. He worked at both Sky and Fox until his death. Outside cricket. Tsunami humanitarian efforts. Sri Lanka was affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Warne joined Muttiah Muralitharan in the humanitarian efforts to help the people who were adversely affected. His Shane Warne Foundation charity organisation donated AU$20,000 in order to help rebuild the Galle International Stadium. Warne was named  in the World XI squad during the World Cricket Tsunami Appeal tournament which was held on 10 January 2005 at Melbourne as a fundraiser to facilitate humanitarian relief efforts following the tsunami. Media. Warne made a cameo appearance on the Australian sitcom "Kath & Kim" in 2007. "Kath & Kim" star Magda Szubanski, whose character Sharon Strzelecki was obsessed with Warne, wrote upon Warne's death: "When we filmed these immortal scenes Warnie proved that he was not just a great sportsman but also a great sport. He played along with our shenanigans and we had loads of fun", adding: "He was  a great pasher!" Warne appeared on a "A Question of Sport", taking on the captaincy for three shows and appearing regularly. In 2010, the Nine Network commissioned a chat show hosted by Warne, entitled "Warnie". The program debuted on 24 November 2010, with Warne interviewing James Packer. Celebrities interviewed on the program included the then captain of the Australian cricket team, Ricky Ponting, and singers Chris Martin and Susan Boyle. The program experienced falling audience figures and was axed before its final scheduled episode, although the network denied that it had been cancelled due to poor ratings. In 2022, less  than two months before his death, the documentary "Shane: King of Spin" was released on Amazon Prime Video. Endorsements. In 2005, Warne signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Messages On Hold. The irony of promoting phone messages after his involvement in several text messaging scandals was not lost on Warne. Messages On Hold's promotional materials quote him as saying, "Trust me with this recommendation – I know a thing or two about spin." Warne also did promotional work for hair-loss-recovery company Advanced Hair. This matter was investigated by the British Advertising Standards Authority in relation to an  illegal celebrity endorsement of medical services. For the 2007/08 Australian cricket series, Warne took over as Victoria Bitter spokesperson from David Boon in the Boonanza promotion. Warne had a talking figurine as part of the promotion, which continued from the "Talking Boony" doll. In January 2008, Warne signed a two-year agreement with 888poker to represent them at poker events around the world, including the Aussie Millions, World Series of Poker and the 888 UK Poker Open. This sponsorship agreement ended in January 2015. In 2009, Warne started an underwear line called Spinners. Investments. Warne was a part-owner of  the SevenZeroEight gin distillery. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Warne announced that the company would turn its production from gin to alcohol-based hand sanitiser. Personal life. Warne was born with complete heterochromia, giving him a blue right eye and a green left eye. Warne was married to Simone Callahan from 1995 to 2005 with whom he had three children: Summer, Jackson and Brooke. After retiring from cricket, Warne worked for the Shane Warne Foundation that assisted seriously ill and underprivileged children. The charity was launched in 2004 and distributed £400,000; its activities included a charity poker  tournament. The charity closed in 2017 after running at a financial loss for four out of the previous five years. In 2014, a particularly bad year, the foundation raised $465,000 but spent $550,000. In 2000, Warne lost the Australian vice-captaincy after it was discovered that he was sending sexual text messages to a British nurse while still married to Callahan. He was also involved in an altercation with some teenage boys who took a photo of him smoking after he had accepted sponsorship from a nicotine patch company in return for quitting smoking. In April 2007, Warne  and his ex-wife were reported to be getting back together two years after divorcing. However, five months later, she again left him after he inadvertently sent her a text message he had intended for another woman. Following his split from Callahan, Warne dated English actress Elizabeth Hurley. Although the relationship at first seemed short-lived following the disclosure of Warne texting sexual messages to a married Melbourne businesswoman, the couple created a media frenzy when Hurley later moved into Warne's mansion in Brighton, Victoria. They announced that they were engaged in late 2011, but had called off the  engagement by December 2013. Warne later reflected that "I was more in love with Elizabeth than I'd realised I could be. I miss the love we had. My years with Elizabeth were the happiest of my life." In August 2021, Warne contracted COVID-19 and was placed on a ventilator "to make sure there were no longer-lasting effects". He said, "I had a thumping headache and I had one day where I had the shivers, but sweating, like when you have the flu." He also said that Australians would have to learn to live with the virus. Death. On  4 March 2022, at the age of 52, Warne died from natural causes of a suspected heart attack while on holiday at a villa in the Samujana resort on the island of Ko Samui in Thailand. His death came on the same day as that of fellow Australian cricketer Rod Marsh, to whom Warne paid tribute on Twitter only a few hours prior to his own death. Six days after Warne's death, his body was returned to Melbourne on a private plane from Thailand. Warne's private funeral took place at Moorabbin Oval, the St Kilda Football Club's  headquarters and former home ground in Melbourne, on 20 March. The mourners were led by his parents and three children, with some former teammates in attendance. Warne was publicly honoured at a state memorial event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 30 March. Tributes. Australian teammates Adam Gilchrist, Jason Gillespie, Matthew Hayden, Andrew Symonds, Brett Lee, Darren Lehmann, Glenn McGrath, Tom Moody, Ricky Ponting and Shane Watson, as well as current Australian Test captain Pat Cummins and current Australian limited-overs captain Aaron Finch remembered Warne. Internationally, many former and current players also paid tribute, including England's Kevin Pietersen  and Michael Vaughan; India's Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli; New Zealand's Brendon McCullum; Pakistan's Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis; South Africa's Graeme Smith; and West Indian Brian Lara. Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle also offered a tribute. Muttiah Muralitharan, the only player to take more Test wickets than Warne, said that while they were competitive on the field, they were really good friends off the pitch. As well as individual tributes, multiple cricket boards also offered their condolences, including Cricket Australia, Sri Lanka Cricket, Cricket West Indies, New Zealand Cricket, and the England and Wales Cricket Board . The Australian women's cricket team wore black armbands as well to commemorate Warne in their first 2022 Women's Cricket World Cup game against England. A similar tribute was held by the Australian men's cricket team on the second day of the first Test against Pakistan, with both teams observing a minute of silence before the day's play. Warne made his elite cricket debut for the St Kilda Cricket Club, so for the game against Dandenong immediately following his death, all players and umpires held a minute's silence before the game. The St Kilda Football Club  also held a moment of silence before their AAMI Community Series (AFL preseason) game against Essendon at Marvel Stadium. Various celebrities, including Russell Crowe, Sir Mick Jagger, Sir Elton John, Ed Sheeran and Magda Szubanski, also paid their respects. Warne's former fiancée Elizabeth Hurley paid tribute, saying: "I feel like the sun has gone behind a cloud forever. RIP my beloved lionheart." Throughout his life, sporting figures such as Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson professed their admiration for Warne. Fans ornamented his MCG statue with flowers, beer, baked beans, meat pies and cigarettes. The Rajasthan Royals team paid tribute  to their former captain by wearing ‘SW23’ on the collars of their cricket jersey in the match against Mumbai Indians, on April 30, 2022. Memorial service. Warne's state memorial service was held on the evening of 30 March 2022 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The service, which was free to attend and ran for around two hours and 20 minutes, was attended by about 55,000 people, broadcast on multiple channels and streamed online. Ultimately, it was watched by more than 1.5 million Australians. The seats on the field were on either side of the wicket, on which one set  of stumps stood with a sun hat on top and a cricket ball nearby. Businessman, media personality and former Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire, a friend of Warne's, organised the memorial and served as master of ceremonies. The memorial opened with Greta Bradman, granddaughter of Sir Donald Bradman, performing "Advance Australia Fair" and featured eulogies from Warne's children, his father and his brother Jason as well as other family and friends. During his euology, Warne's father remarked that "Shane said of himself, 'I smoked, I drank, and I played a little cricket'." Two panels for tributes  and reminiscences about Warne were included in the proceedings. First, broadcaster Mark Howard hosted a cricket panel featuring Australians Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Merv Hughes, along with England's Nasser Hussain and the West Indies' Brian Lara. Hussain recalled the first game of the 1998–99 Australia Tri-Nation Series final between England and Australia in Sydney, where Warne had been stand-in captain and had followed up a back-and-forth sledge with Hussain by having him stumped, which led to Australia winning by 10 runs and winning the series 2–0, and also paid tribute on behalf of English  cricket fans and his and Warne's commentary and broadcast colleagues at Sky Sports. Lara recalled that his 277 not out (his maiden Test century and double Test century) in the third Test of the 1992–93 West Indian tour of Australia in Sydney was aided by the fact that rain in Sydney had meant that Warne could not find drift. In the second panel, which comedian Andy Lee hosted, the focus was more on Warne outside of cricket and included a number of Warne's longtime friends. Only one cricketer was included – Warne's Hampshire teammate Dimitri Mascarenhas. The other  members were comedian Glenn Robbins, retired Carlton and St Kilda footballer Aaron Hamill and Sam Newman, retired Geelong footballer and former co-host of "The Footy Show". The memorial had a line-up of musicians and celebrities who were friends with Warne, including Kylie Minogue and Hugh Jackman. Former partner Elizabeth Hurley declined to appear or send a video tribute, saying that she was "too emotional to encapsulate her feelings into a 30-second clip". A mixture of live and pre-recorded musical performances included Chris Martin singing a rearranged version of "Yellow" (one of Warne's favourite songs), Elton  John singing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", Robbie Williams singing "Angels" and Ed Sheeran singing "Thinking Out Loud" (which was Warne's favourite Sheeran song). Jon Stevens and Anthony Callea also gave live performances, with Callea singing "The Prayer" as Warne was said to be a big fan of Andrea Bocelli. Before the ending, jazz trumpeter Mat Jodrell played "When The Saints Go Marching In", which is used by the St Kilda Football Club as their club song with some lyrical changes. It had previously been decided that the Great Southern Stand at the MCG was  to be renamed in Warne's honour. To conclude the memorial, Warne's children unveiled the Shane Warne Stand sign with a recording of Frank Sinatra singing "My Way" playing in the background as the crowd rose and cheered. Recognition. In 2000, Warne was chosen by a panel of cricket experts as one of five "Wisden" Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected and the only one still playing at the time. He was named in an all-time Test World XI by the same publication and he was the "Wisden" Leading Cricketer in the World in 1997  and 2004. In 2004, Warne was included as part of Richie Benaud's Greatest XI, a team chosen by Richie Benaud that compared players across all teams and eras using statistics and personal testimonials. Warne was chosen as the best spin bowler of all time by both Benaud and the general Australian public, with 85% of respondents in agreement. In 2006, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Business Administration by Southampton Solent University. In 2007, Cricket Australia and Sri Lanka Cricket decided to name the Australia–Sri Lanka Test cricket series the Warne–Muralitharan Trophy in honour  of Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan. Also in 2007, Cricket Australia named Warne in their greatest ODI XI of all time. In 2009, he was awarded honorary life membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club. On 22 December 2011, a statue honouring Warne was unveiled outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Sculpted by Louis Laumen, the bronze statue depicts Warne during his bowling action with an inscription highlighting his cricketing career. Warne, who was present at the sculpture's unveiling, stated: "It's a great honour, it's a bit weird seeing yourself up there but I'm very proud." In 2012, a  grandstand at the Rose Bowl, where Warne played county cricket for Hampshire, was named the Shane Warne Stand in honour of him. In 2012, he was also inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by Cricket Australia. In 2013, Warne was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. In a fan poll conducted by the "Cricketers' Almanack" in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years. On 5 March 2022, less than 24 hours after Warne's death, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews announced that the Melbourne Cricket Ground's Great Southern  Stand would be renamed in Warne's honour.