Former Australian spinner Shane Warne, who appeared in a total of 339 international matches for the country during his 15-year-long illustrious career,was born on this day in 1969.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) took to its official Twitter handle and extended warm birthday greetings to 'one of the greatest bowlers of all time' Warne, who turned 51 on Sunday.
The world's cricket governing body wished Warne on his special day by posting his picture and listing down his career statistics.
"708 Test and 293 ODI wickets,Trophy 1999 @cricketworldcup winner, 'Ball of the century' in 1993, ICC Hall of Fame inductee. Happy birthday to one of the greatest bowlers of all time, Shane Warne," the ICC tweeted.
Warne began his international career for Australia during a Test match against India at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January 1992.The right-handed batsman's ODI debut came a year later in March 1993 against New Zealand at Basin Reserve.
Warne went on to make 145 appearances for Australia in the longest format of the game and 194 appearances in the One-Day Internationals (ODIs).
The spinner has notched up 708 Test wickets and 293 wickets in the 50-over format during his career besides also amassing 4,172 runs across the two formats of the game.
Regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game,Warne also scored 6,919 runs and took 1,319 wickets in 301 first-class games. He also amassed 473 wickets and 1,879 runs in 311 List-A matches.
In 1994, he was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year before being named Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World in 1997.Warne was once again named the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World for the year 2004.
Warne, who was also part of the national team that won 1999 Cricket World Cup, bid adieu to the international cricket in January 2007 following the conlusion of Australia's 5–0 Ashes series victory over England.
