In the ongoing first Test between India and Sri Lanka, both teams walked out on Day 2 wearing black armbands in memory of leg-spinner Shane Warne. Warne passed away on Friday, aged 52 due to a suspected heart attack.
India and Sri Lanka also observed a minute of silence before the start of the play to condole the demise of Warne and Rodney Marsh. “A minute’s silence was observed before the start of play on Day 2 of the first Test for Rodney Marsh and Shane Warne who passed away yesterday. The Indian Cricket Team will also be wearing black armbands today,” an official statement from BCCI stated.
Warne was one of the most influential cricketers in history. He almost single-handedly reinvented the art of leg-spin when he burst onto the international scene in the early 1990s, and by the time he retired from international cricket in 2007, he had become the first bowler to reach 700 Test wickets. A central figure in Australia’s ICC Cricket World Cup triumph in 1999, when he was player of the match in both the semi-final and the final, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack recognized Shane’s achievements by naming him as one of its Five Cricketers of the Twentieth Century. Warne finished his international career with 708 Test wickets and a further 293 in One-Day Internationals, placing him second in the list of all-time international wicket-takers behind his great friend and rival Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka (1,347). Shane also captained Australia in 11 One-Day Internationals, winning 10 and losing just once.