Shane Warne has been immortalised in bronze, with a new statue of the Australian cricket great unveiled outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground today.
The 2.5-metre tall likeness by sculptor Louis Lauman depicts the spin king bowling in his heyday.
Warne congratulated Lauman on the statue.
"It's fantastic Louis. Congratulations mate, you've done a great job," he said.
"Very proud, it's a great honour.
"It's sort of weird seeing yourself up there, but it's a very good likeness."
Lauman says he tried to depict Warne as he was then, rather than the slimmed-down version currently plying his trade in the Twenty20 Big Bash League for the Melbourne Stars.
"I think it's 300 kilos that statue and it's pretty life-like it was when I played," Warne joked.
Warne joins cricketers including Sir Donald Bradman, Keith Miller and Dennis Lillee in having his statue erected on the Parade of Champions outside the hallowed ground.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, the ABC's Gerard Whateley said Warne had grown up near the MCG, dreaming of the possibilities inside it.
"This was his theatre and he seemed to know to reserve his best for it," he said.
Former captain Mark Taylor recalled how Warne brought a sense of fun and flair to the Australian team.
"When Warnie came into the side in the early 1990s the game was dominated by fast bowlers," Taylor recalled.
"We had a guy who could, at the end of the game, make as big an impact as the West Indies fast bowlers could at the start.
"No matter how many runs we had on the board, with Shane Warne in the side we could still make them enough to win the game."
Tags: cricket, sport, melbourne-3000, vic, australia First posted December 22, 2011 11:04:44
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