Australian cricket legend Shane Warne has died.
The legendary leg-spinner turned cricket commentator was in Koh Samui, Thailand, when he suffered a suspected heart attack.
Warne’s management released a statement in the early hours of Saturday morning (AEDT) confirming the tragic news, first reported by Fox Cricket.
“Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived,” the statement reads.
“The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course.”
Warne’s death follows fellow Australian icon Rod Marsh’s passing just a day earlier from a heart attack, in a tragic week for Australian and world cricket.
Warne had himself posted a tribute to Marsh on his Twitter account just hours before.
Tributes have quickly poured in for the 52-year old from across the cricketing world, with teammate and co-commentator on Fox Cricket Adam Gilchrist, former Indian opener Virender Sehwag and long-time adversaries the Barmy Army among those to pay their respects.
Warne will forever be remembered as one of the most influential, and finest, cricketers in history.
Arriving on the scene as a chubby blonde 22-year old with a ripping leg-break and a reputation as a troublemaker, he would quickly transform into the lynchpin of Australia’s era of dominance through the 1990s and early 2000s.
Capturing 708 Test wickets at the princely average of 25.41, he was named one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Century, the second Australian named after Sir Donald Bradman.
The famous ‘Gatting ball’ – Warne’s first in Test cricket in England – that flummoxed England great Mike Gatting in the first Test of the 1993 Ashes series is known as the ‘Ball of the Century’, and widely regarded as one of the greatest ever bowled.
Warne played 145 Tests for Australia in a career marked by controversy. He would miss 12 months in 2003 after admitting to taking a banned diuretic; his relationship with captain Steve Waugh never recovered after being dropped during the tour of the West Indies in 1999; and his off-field antics frequently landed himself in hot water, be it with bookmakers or the opposite sex.
But through it all, Warne remained a virtuoso on the cricket field, and it is as the man who reinvigorated the lost art of leg-spin that he will be most fondly remembered by lovers of the game from all walks of life.
Following his career, Warne became a well-known, and occasionally controversial, media personality, first with Channel Nine and then with Fox Cricket.
He is survived by his two children, and in the hearts and minds of all who saw him play.