Shane Warne- Great Australian cricketer of all time

Shane Warne

Warne made his first-class cricket debut in 1990-91, taking 0/61 and 1/41 for Victoria against Western Australia at the Junction Oval in Melbourne.

With Australia searching for a leg spin bowler for its Test team, Warne was selected in the Australia B team which toured Zimbabwe in September 1991. His best performance was 7/52 in a four-day match.

Back home, he took 3/14 and 4/42 for Australia A against the West Indies in December 1991, and was rushed into the team for the Third Test against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground a week later.

He had an undistinguished debut, taking 1/150 (Ravi Shastri caught by Dean Jones for 206) off 45 overs, and recording figures of 1/228 in his first Test series.

His poor return continued in the first innings against Sri Lanka at Colombo in the next year, in which he recorded 0/107. However, a spell of 3 for 11 in the second innings contributed to a remarkable Australian win and arguably saved his Test career.

Despite the inauspicious start to his Test career, he has since revolutionised cricket thinking with his mastery of leg spin, which many cricket fans had regarded as a dying art. He has combined the ability to turn the ball prodigiously, even on unhelpful pitches, with unerring accuracy and a wide variation of deliveries (notably including the flipper).

Many of his most spectacular performances have occurred in Ashes series against England, whose players' inexperience against leg spin bowling made them particularly vulnerable.

However, with feats like the famous "Gatting Ball" or "Ball of the Century" which spun sharply and bowled a bemused Mike Gatting in the 1993 Ashes series, most of the credit is Warne's. Conversely, he has struggled against India: his bowling average against them is a poor 47.18, compared with less than 31 against every other country.

Warne has been highly effective bowling in one-day cricket, something few other leg spin bowlers have managed. He also captained Australia on several occasions in one-day internationals, winning ten matches and losing only one. Warne had intended to retire from ODI cricket at the end of the 2003 World Cup, as it transpired, his last game for Australia was in January 2003. However he did appear for the ICC World XI for the Tsumani benefit match in 2005.

In March 2004, he became the second cricketer, after Courtney Walsh of the West Indies, to take 500 Test wickets. He broke the record for most career wickets in Test cricket on October 15, 2004 during the Second Test against India at Chennai, overtaking his great spin bowling rival, Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka. (As both Warne and Muralitharan are still playing, the record may change hands again).

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, he also broke the record for the number of wickets in a calendar year, with 96 wickets.

He is also noted for his exuberant (and sometimes effective) lower-order batting, once famously being dismissed for 99 with a reckless shot when a Test century beckoned, on what was later shown to be a no ball. In fact, Warne has scored the most Test runs without having scored a century, with another score in the 90s.