One of the joys of having several different formats of the game of cricket is that one can retire more than once. Such is the case of Shane Warne.
His retirement from Test cricket - along with that of Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer - reduced the 2006/07 Ashes into one long farewell tour.
His retirement from ODI cricket was not so well orchestrated. The plan was to retire from one-dayers for Australia at the end of the 2003 World Cup. But that was before he was sprung illegally taking his mum's medication.
Yesterday, Warnie confirmed what we really should have understood for a few months, when Hampshire CCC announced his retirement from first-class cricket, because of his "many other business and charitable activities". The writing was on the wall from the moment he announced his unavailability for Hampshire for the 2008 Twenty20 Cup to play professional poker.
Cricket historians will fiercely debate for years to come whether Warne's retirement from Hampshire to play poker surpasses Phil Tufnell's retirement from Middlesex to appear in "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here".
Warne's announcement means that his final day of first-class cricket in fact took place more than six months ago. It was September 22, 2007 at Headingley in the County Championship Division One for Hampshire against Yorkshire. And it was washed out without any play.
There had been only two days play in that game. Warne bowled two overs (0/7) and did not bat.
Go back a week, to Hampshire's ten-wicket loss to Kent at The Rose Bowl, and you will find Warne's last four first-class wickets (for 134 runs off 44.3 overs) and his last two innings (37 and 4). His final victim? Martin Saggers, who will surely be remembered more for this moment than for his England Test career.
In sixteen-and-a-half years Warne played 301 first-class matches for Victoria, Hampshire, and a variety of Australian Test and touring teams. He scored 6919 runs at an average of 19.43 with two centuries, but more importantly he took 1319 wickets at an average of 26.11. The best of his 69 five-wicket hauls was his 8/71 against England at The Gabba in 1994.
Still not quite up there, however, with that most prolific of Australian wicket-takers, Clarrie Grimmett, who took 1424 wickets at 22.28 in 248 first-class appearances. Grimmett took his wickets in the space of 73,344 deliveries. Warne, for his 1319 wickets, bowled 74,829.
Of course, it's not quite the end of all cricket for Shane Warne, and to some extent his career is turning full circle. Having turned out as a professional for Accrington in the Lancashire League in 1991, Warne goes for the money again in 2008 in an off-beaten professional competition, as captain-coach of the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League.