MCG’s Great Southern Stand to be renamed in Shane Warne’s honour

Australian spin legend Shane Warne breathed his last on March 4 as he passed away due to a heart attack in Thailand at the age of 52 years. People across the globe including the fans and the cricketing fraternity were taken aback by his shocking demise and tributes started pouring in for the leggie.

While it has hardly been 24 hours since Warne passed away, it has been learned that he would get an honorable mention by getting one of the stands of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) named after him. It has thus been confirmed by the Victorian Sports Minister Martin Pakula that the Great Southern Stand at the iconic MCG will be renamed S.K. Warne Stand.

Shane Warne to get a stand at the MCG named after him

“I don’t want to talk through talk about the renaming process other than to say I had a conversation with Dan a couple of hours ago and he’s exchanged messages with Shane’s brother and whilst they might be a technical process that would normally be gone through, sometimes you need to dispense with that,” said Pakula as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

“You need to respond in the way that I think the whole community would think is appropriate,” he added.

The news was also made official by Cricket Australia on their Twitter handle.

Beers and tears flow in tribute to the King as MCG stand renamed for the great Shane Warne: https://t.co/bVRgSkme44 pic.twitter.com/TP1cVFHlAf

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) March 5, 2022

Shane Warne who was born in Melbourne went on to have an illustrious cricketing career at the international level for a one-and-half decade as he achieved many milestones for Australia by bamboozling the best batters all over the world from 1992 to 2007. The late leg-spinner remains the second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket with 708 scalps to his name behind the Sri Lankan spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan (800).

At the same time, Warne is also the second bowler after Murali to have a four-digit wicket-taking tally at the highest level. While the Lankan offie has 1347 international scalps, the legendary leggie has 1001 international wickets to his name. Meanwhile, it is to be noted that Warne was the first-ever bowler to register 600 and 700 wicket scalps respectively.