In that time he has made himself a legend — the best leg spinner to play the game, one of the five greatest cricketers of the 20th century, still an irresistible match-winner in the 21st and the only irreplaceable member of one of the greatest Australia teams there has been.

If Glenn McGrath also retires after the fifth Test in Sydney, he can be replaced, great bowler and competitor though he, too, has been. Stuart Clark is 31 but has been quite lightly worked in his career, so he could lead the attack for five years. Other talented young fast bowlers are ready to be promoted, notably Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Tait and Ben Hilfenhaus.

The same is true for Adam Gilchrist, who has Brad Haddin and Luke Ronchi waiting in the wings. But Warne is, was and will always remain unique, for his power of spin, his cunning, his burning competitiveness, his charisma on and off the field and his astonishing accuracy, unprecedented in any orthodox leg-spin bowler.

Stuart MacGill, the second-best leg spinner in world cricket, who turns the ball as much as Warne, has a better disguised googly and has taken 198 wickets at 27 in his 40 Tests, will be an able replacement for a while if the selectors are prepared to overlook his volatile temperament. But Cameron White, the next in line at one stage, is more a batsman than a bowler now and Brad Hodge, the left-arm wrist spinner who took the place of Warne in the one-day team, is 35, like MacGill.

Bill O’Reilly, whom Don Bradman considered the greatest spinner of his time, had a fiery competitiveness similar to Warne’s that earned him 144 Test wickets at 22, but not quite the same accuracy, nor the ability to beat batsmen in the air so often. Clarrie Grimmett (244 at 24) had the flight, but quick-footed batsmen could get to the pitch of his lower-armed leg breaks more easily and with the heavy, powerful yet beautifully balanced bats that have cost Warne many a wicket in recent years, he might not have prospered now as he did in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet Warne has dominated more or less in every country he has bowled since the ball that defined him as a star, the one that dipped past Mike Gatting’s broad beam and bat at Old Trafford in 1993 before fizzing back like a snake from outside the leg stump to hit the top of the off. Truth be told, Warne has bowled scores — perhaps even hundreds — to match it since.

Against Shivnarine Chanderpaul in Sydney in 1996-97 he bowled a ball that pitched almost on the edge of the pitch, so far was it outside the off stump. The West Indies left-hander was drawing back to cut and the umpire was getting ready to call a wide, even as the ball leapt back to hit leg stump. Andrew Strauss experienced something not dissimilar when he tried to pad up to the enormous leg break that bowled him at Edgbaston last year.

Warne has played 143 Tests since his debut against India in 1992. It was a curiously unsuccessful start — one for 150 at the Sydney Cricket Ground — but soon he was winning matches for Australia and only Muttiah Muralitharan, of Sri Lanka, hard on his heels with 674 wickets but forever tainted in some people’s eyes because of his unique action, has been so regular a match-winner. Warne has long come to terms with the likelihood that Muralitharan,three years younger and every bit as hungry, will finish on top.

Warne, however, was the first to 600 Test wickets when he got Marcus Trescothick out in 2005 and he will be the first to 700 one day next week, as sure as Melbourne is in Derbyshire — and Victoria.

In one-day international cricket he took 293 wickets at 25 in 194 matches. He was man of the match in the 1999 World Cup final against Pakistan at Lord’s, having taken vital wickets in the famous semi-final against South Africa at Edgbaston, but he had to return in ignominy before the next tournament in South Africa after taking a banned diuretic.

Warne said that he had taken the substance to help with weight loss, but was banned for a year.

Ricky Ponting has long forgiven him that, although he was angry at the time and has had trouble controlling the elemental force of Warne’s personality and intelligence in the dressing-room.

Warne has shown at Hampshire what an outstanding leader he is and he would certainly have been an inspiring captain of Australia, but that he was never appointed may have been a blessing in disguise for himself and Australian cricket. He has sailed close to the wind off the field and on it, where he has bullied and cajoled umpires as well as “chirping” ceaselessly in the direction of timid batsmen.

Only his immense charm and allowances for his genius have saved him from the punishment that he has often appeared to deserve for dissent when decisions go against him. Yet he has been a great ambassador for his craft, generous with his time at coaching clinics and whenever there are enthusiasts wanting to talk to him, old or young.

Regrets? Too few to mention. Highlights? Too numerous. His best figures came against England in Brisbane in 1994, when he took eight for 71. He will always be a fabled figure in England. So far he has 186 wickets in 34 Ashes Tests, including his couragously earned 40 in the 2005 series.

It was against them at the MCG that he took his hat-trick, but, after operations on his spinning finger and his right shoulder — he had reconstructive surgery on the shoulder in 1998 and dislocated it at the end of 2002 — he had not been so prolific as in the past few years.

He took 26 Sri Lanka wickets in three Tests in 2003-04 and 96 in 2005. In Kevin Pietersen he has found a foe worthy of his steel in this series, but there will be no mercy shown to any of his opponents in two final Tests, during which his talent will be appreciated even more by those about to experience it for the last time.

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