Sunil Gavaskar shocked by Shane Warne's death but says he was not the greatest spinner
Sunil Gavaskar has spoken at his shock at the death of Shane Warne but does not think the Australian tweaker was the greatest spinner of all time. Speaking on a show on the India Today television channel, Gavaskar said Warne's death at the age of 52 on Friday due to a suspected heart attack in Koh Samui, Thailand, had left him speechless. Warne's death followed that of fellow Australian great, wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, at the age of 74. "Within the space of 24 hours, the cricket world has lost two giants of the game, not just Australian cricket but the cricket world. Rodney Marsh and then Shane Warne. This is unbelievable. Hard to come to grips with," Gavaskar said.
Read AlsoFriend of Shane Warne reveals final hours before cricket legend's deathShane Warne offered gifts of his old cricket clothing and ate the traditional Australian snack of Vegemite on toast in the final hours before his death on Friday, an associate of the cricketing great said. Warne had experienced chest pains prior to his death in Thailand and had asthma and some heart
"Warne mastered a craft which is so difficult... wrist spin. To pick 700-plus wickets like he did in Test cricket, hundreds more in one-day cricket tells you how good a bowler he was. "Finger spin is a lot easier, you have more control over what you want to bowl but leg spin or wrist spin is tough. For him to have bowled the way he did, the way he seemed to create magic... at will was the reason he was revered all over the cricketing world." Gavaskar said he did not consider Warne, who took 708 Test wickets to sit behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800) in the overall list, as the greatest spinner of all time.
"For me, the Indian spinners and Muralitharan were certainly better
