Shane Warne AO (1969–2022) is considered by many the greatest spin bowler in cricket history. Born and raised in Melbourne, he played his first Test against India in Sydney in January 1992, and his last, against England, in January 2007. In between, he took 708 wickets and did more to secure Australian cricket victories than any other single player. After some inauspicious early Test performances, Warne took seven for 52 in the second innings of the Boxing Day Test in 1992; and he was the leading wicket-taker (with 34) for the Ashes series of 1993, during which he bowled out English batsman Mike Gatting with what is said to have been the 'ball of the century.' Warne scored his 150th wicket during the 1994–1995 Ashes series, and in January 1998 he became the second Australian bowler (after Dennis Lillee) to amass 300 Test wickets. During a series against New Zealand in March 2000, he surpassed Lillee to become Australia’s leading wicket taker; and during the 2005 Ashes series in England he became the first player ever to take 600 Test wickets. Warne weathered the fallout from various off-field transgressions to be named one of Wisden’s top five cricketers of all time, and Wisden’s Leading Cricketer in the World for 2004. Like Donald Bradman's and Keith Miller's, Warne's portrait hangs in the Long Room at Lord's Cricket Ground, but he is the only cricketer to have been honoured in this way while still playing. With Glenn McGrath, Warne was inducted into the International Cricket Council Cricket Hall of Fame in 2013. After retiring from first class cricket, he played in the World Series of Poker tournament and captained the Rajasthan Royals to victory in the Indian Premier League, while also becoming popular as a television commentator. He published an autobiography, No Spin, in 2018.
Robin Sellick photographed Shane Warne against the backdrop of the greenery surrounding the tennis court at the cricketer's Melbourne home. The portrait was one of five photographs by Sellick featured in the 2006 National Portrait Gallery exhibition Flash: Australian athletes in focus. Sellick grew up in Broken Hill, New South Wales, and began contributing to magazines including Vogue, Australian Style and Marie Claire from the mid-1990s, following a period of time working in New York. His portraits have appeared on the covers of NME, Q Magazine and German Rolling Stone and continue to be published around the world. Retaining a distinct influence of his early years, during which he was surrounded by bush characters with large personalities, Sellick's portraits are often characterised by a sense of theatricality and the use of brash, saturated colour. In photographing Warne and compatriots including Harry Kewell, Adam Scott and Mark Webber, Sellick examined the idolatry and celebrity of Australian sporting heroes, while also seeking to show them as ordinary people in their everyday surroundings.
Purchased 2006
© Robin Sellick
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