"It Was Like, We Have Lost Our Own": PM Modi On Shane Warne

Sydney [Australia]: Prime Minister Narendra Modi remembered all-time great Australian spinner Shane Warne while addressing the Indian diaspora at a community event in Sydney on Tuesday and said that every Indian mourned on the day of the former cricketer’s demise as if ‘we have lost our own’.

PM Modi said that the India-Australia friendship is not only about cherishing good moments but also about sharing sorrows together. PM Modi was addressing a community event in Sydney during the second day of his visit.

‘It is not that we are only friends in happiness, a good friend stays with you in good times but also shares sorrows. Last year, when legend Shane Warne passed away, with Australia, every Indian mourned. It was like, we have lost our own,’ PM Modi said.

Warne passed away on March 4 last year after a suspected heart attack while vacationing in Thailand. One of the most loved and followed cricketers in history, the Victorian single-handedly reinvented the art of leg-spin when he burst onto the international scene in the early 1990s.

And, by the time he bid adieu to the sport in 2007, Warne had become the first bowler to collect 700 Test wickets.

Warne finished his international career with 708 Test wickets and a further 293 in One-Day Internationals, placing him second on the list of all-time international wicket-takers behind his great friend and rival Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka at 1,347.

Warne, known to his Baggy Green mates as ‘Warnie’, also captained Australia in 11 One-Day Internationals, winning 10 and losing just once.