Cricket: Warne to be inducted into Australian Hall of Fame

Shane Warne. Photo / Getty Images

Former Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne will be inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame at the annual Allan Border Medal presentations on Monday.

Hall of Fame chairman David Crow said Sunday that Warne was the selection committee's unanimous choice. The first cricketer to take 700 test wickets, Warne was named as one of only five Wisden cricketers of the century in 2000.

Crow said Warne "revived legspin, combining accuracy with variety and enormous turn ... it was the timing of his performances, in addition to his sheer weight of wickets, that further underlined his legendary status."

Warne, who plans to attend Monday's ceremony, said "to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is just a massive honor."

Warne retired from test cricket in 2007, after taking 708 test wickets from 145 matches, including his "ball of the century" to dismiss England's Mike Gatting at Manchester, England in 1993.

He was also crucial to Australia's World Cup success in 1999, but missed the 2003 tournament because of a doping ban.

"To be mentioned in the same breath as some of those cricketers who have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and to be inducted so soon after my international retirement, is a great privilege," Warne said in a statement.

Warne said he idolized pace bowler Dennis Lillee as a boy.

"Watching some of these guys growing up, and as kids pretending I was one of them with my brother in the backyard," Warne said.

The Australian Hall of Fame began in 1996 with Lillee and Don Bradman among 10 initial inductees.

-AP