Shane Warne’s decision to retire from all international cricket at the age of 37 when the Ashes series against England ends at the Sydney Cricket Ground on January 6 and from all cricket in Australia from that date was crystallised as soon as Australia won back the Ashes on Monday.

Warne announced it at a press conference in Melbourne this morning, but Rod Bransgrove, the Hampshire chairman, confirmed earlier yesterday that the greatest of all wrist-spin bowlers will honour his commitment to captain the county for two more seasons and did not rule out an extension if it can be negotiated.

“My time is now,” Warne said. “The script leading up to the last two matches was that I was going to retire after the Sydney Test match.

“I was not going to do anything ahead of the team and once we got the urn back it was going to be time to announce my retirement.

“I’m going out on my terms. It is a day of celebration.”

Channel Nine, the Australian broadcaster that is expected to employ Warne as a commentator, was also reporting last night that Glenn McGrath would retire from cricket after the fifth Test in Sydney starting on January 2. No two contemporary bowlers for one country have remotely compared with these two, a Scylla and Charybdis in the path of every batsman. They have taken 1,254 wickets in Test matches.

For the moment, the spotlight is on Warne. He has taken a world-record 699 Test wickets and even cricket’s capacity to humble everyone who plays the game will surely not deny him his 700th — and, no doubt, a few more — on his home ground at the MCG in the match that begins on Boxing Day before the largest crowd assembled at an Ashes Test — 95,000. First he will spend Christmas with his family, still hoping for rapprochement with his estranged wife, Simone.

Retirement from Test cricket will not have come as quite such a shock to his team-mates as Damien Martyn’s abrupt departure before the previous Test in Perth. “These are the things you’re going to miss,” Warne said in front of the Waca crowd on Monday as he and his team-mates celebrated the win that regained the Ashes for Australia. “I’m closer to the end than the bloody start.”

He wants to finish in Sydney, where his Test career began in 1992 against India, and to have the opportunity before then of playing in front of friends and family at his home ground, the MCG. He thinks that he could continue to play Test cricket for a while and bowled as well as ever in Adelaide and Perth, but he wants to go when people are still asking why rather than why not.

He would have retired from Test cricket after last year’s series in England had Australia retained the Ashes, tempted by an offer to play in South African domestic cricket in a deal believed to have been worth more than £1 million. That he rejected it to be part of the team who won back the urn demonstrates what his priority has always been.

Australia have had some passionately committed competitors — Dennis Lillee among them — but no one has matched Warne for unyielding commitment to the national cause. His performance in taking 40 wickets at 19.92 runs each in England in 2005 was extraordinary. In the present series he has bowled 176.2 overs, almost 50 more than anyone else.

Allan Border, a former Australia captain, was surprised by the news. “I just got the inkling he was even considering one more tilt at England in England,” he said. “It’s caught everyone by surprise.”

Brett Lee, the Australia fast bowler, said: “I have heard it said that Warnie is not fit, but he is as match fit as they come. He is the only guy I know who can bowl 30 overs straight. If anyone wanted the Ashes back it was Warnie. Losing them affected him massively. His great strength is mental.”