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In the world cricket, normally the awe surrounds the blasting batsmen or the lightening fast bowlers. There are very few examples of spinners inducing excitement and thrill. Shane Warne of Australia is the best spinner of all time without any shade of doubt. His right arm leg break is second to none. His nearest opponents in the matter of spinning the ball are far behind. His majestic finger voodoo has ruled the world for 16 years with a style.

The start of his career wasn’t as spectacular as one would have thought. In his first test against India, he took just 1 wicket of Ravi Shastri, who was caught by Dean Jones, and Shane gave away 10 runs in that match. He was given the place of Peter Taylor whose form was out. Shane Warne even failed to impress the selectors and spectators in his next series against Srilanka at Colombo, in which his figures were dismal 0/107 in the first innings. But in the second innings, he came back with a bang, and got 3 wickets just for 11 runs. That performance saved his career, because that enabled Australia to win the match.

Then Warne never looked back. He started his killing course in Sri Lanka, and then took it to West Indies team, and in 1992/1993 in Melbourne, he performed brilliantly and took 7/52 in a match winning show. In his great career, he played 145 tests and 194 one day internationals. In test matches, he bowled 40705 balls and his bowling average remained 25.41. He has taken a staggering 708 wickets in test matches. His best bowling is 8/71. He has taken 10 wickets in a match ten times, and has taken 5 wickets in a match 37 times. In the ODIs, his record is very enviable. In his 194 ODIs, he has taken 293 wickets with the average of 25.73. His best bowling remains 5/33. He has bowled 10642 ODI balls.
Shane Warne has also considered by many as a nice all-rounder. He has, on many critical occasions, has contributed to Australian score. In the test matches he has scored 3154 runs with an average of almost 18 and has the top score of 99. In the ODIs, his score is 1018 and his top score is 55.

Shane Warne’s authority lies in the complexity of his bowling. All the experts beleive that it is very highly unlikely that the world of cricket will see any other bowler like Shane Warne. His leg spin is unprecedented. His art of leg break is very hard to copy and replicate. Due to his bowling’s immense difficulty of execution, its a dying art. Shane Warne will always be remembered for overturning the rule of fast bowling in the world cricket. His difficult style enabled him to extract help even from dead pitches of sub-continent. His flawless accuracy and variety of technique, especially the flipper placed him at the top of bowling ranking.

Shane Warne’s dominance at the cricket’s bowling arena is very solid and firm and has shadowed the might of great fast bowlers like Ambrose, Lee, McGrath, Wasim and Waqar. The place he has earned, weren’t even earned by the likes of spin experts like Abdul Qadir and others. Abdul Qadir was also a very great complex bowler, but he never managed to eclipse the power of  Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson and Imran Khan.

Ashes series has remained the selective jewel of his crowned career. He balled the famous “ball of the century” in the Ashes series, which spun sharply and bowled a bewildered Mike Gatting in the 1993. He has also led Australia in the one day internationals. In his brief spells as a skipper, he has won ten matches and has lost only one.

Shane Keith Warne was born on 13 September 1969 in Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria in Australia. On 21 December 2006 Warne announced his retirement, which came into effect after the fifth Ashes Test match at the SCG. He retired from International cricket in January 2007.