Warne has been gone only a few hours yet cricket suddenly feels a smaller game without him.

That’s because it is a smaller game without him. This is stunning, shattering news.

There has never been a player or personality quite like him and we will never see his like again.

Of all the thousands of quotes about Shane Warne over the years there is one that still stands out.

It came from his coach Terry Jenner in England just as Warne was breaking through on the 1993 Ashes tour.

He said: “I know what is going to happen here. Warne will inspire thousands of kids to bowl leg-spin and you will see all the junior rep teams stocked with them. But don’t expect to see any more at Test level. The trade is that hard most of them just won’t get there. This guy’s a one-off.

“He will come and he will go and he will never be replaced.’’

And so it has proved. Australia doesn’t even bother with the term “the new Warnie because it knows there will ever be only one of him.’’

In covering Warne’s career here are some are things I noted about cricket’s most captivating character.

THE GENEROUS MAN

Generosity was one of his strong points. His money flew everywhere to the point where Warnie was known to occasionally alert hotel security that he had a wad of cash stolen from his room only to realise he had stuffed it in a random sock.

When parents and wives of partners were having trouble getting a domestic flight in South Africa in the 1990s Warne heard someone say that the only option was a private charter flight but it was expensive.

“I will pay for that – just get the bill,’’ he said as if it was a round of drinks.

Nugget Rees, the much-loved Australia’s team mascot-guest-friend who helps the Australian teams in Adelaide, once said that Warne rings him to ask after his welfare more than any other cricketer. The calls from Warne to Rees came from all over the globe.

THE INSECURITIES

Warne was a fascinating amalgam of supreme self-confidence and occasional doubts.

Only a year ago he went out with an old playing mate and said “do you know I still feel as if I am searching for myself a bit – I’m always busy and got everything but I’m not totally happy.’’

Put a cricket ball in his hand and he felt he could do anything. But he also craved reassurance.

When he was captain of the Australian 50-over team for a short stint he would return to the room after guiding the team in the field and occasionally get on the dressing room phone during the lunch break and ring a mate from the Herald-Sun mid-match asking what had been the feedback about his captaincy among commentators.

“What are people saying? Did anyone notice how well that early bowling change went?’’

THE QUIET DRINKER

Warne got into his share of controversies, especially with his love life, but one thing he never got credit for was the way he handled rowdy fans.

Few sportsmen got the attention of more drunken dribblers yet there was never any friction. Tails of his love life are well documented but I cannot recall one bar room incident.

One of the reasons for this is that Warne rarely drank too much. He liked Midori and lemonade and an occasional glass of wine but drinking was the one thing in his life he did in moderation.

Damien Fleming said once he had never seen Warne have too many drinks.

Once the Australian team had a “Warnie watch’’ where Darren Lehmann watched him all night and monitored how much he drank. It added up to nothing more than a couple of glasses of wine.

THE FAME GAME

Warne loved most parts of his famous life but it could also grind him down.

“I’m burning up inside,’’ he said during the 1994 South African tour when he was just getting used to the first flush of global fame.

Big celebrities gravitated around him. You had to see some of the attention first hand to believe it, like the world’s most glamorous tennis star Anna Kournikova turning up to Australian training in Sydney just to meet him.

I once asked him was it true that Elton John said to him if he could be anyone else in the world he would be Warnie.

He said “that’s true … so did Mick Jagger.’’

Yet for all this, small things could rattle him. During the 1999 World Cup he told the story of how a young boy with beautiful manners had asked him to sign a players card after waiting for two hours at training and he said it was a joy to do it.

But a day later as he was walking near the ground he saw a souvenir shop where the card had been placed on sale so the boy was working for someone. “This shouldn’t rattle me but you get to the point where you feel you can’t trust anyone.’’

During that same World Cup Warne said he had had enough of fame and just wanted to go back to being the boy from Black Rock.

He was so down that a few touring journalists said “mate, forget the fame do you want to join us for dinner?’’

He said “love to but I’m meeting Elton’’ before laughing at the contradiction of it all.

THE PERFORMER

Physical toughness was Warne’s great hidden strength.

Because he was such a showman he never got the credit for being a physically robust man. Team-mates poked fun at him for “being like an 80 year old man’’ on the physios bench but where it mattered most – in the middle – he was tough.

When he had his shoulder surgery in 1999 the doctors who performed the operation looked at each other in disbelief when they saw how it was hanging by a thread.

“How could he have possibly bowled with this?’’ one said.

THE BRILLIANT MIND

Warne had a restless inventive mind full of theories which were all his own.

His best original thought came in a meeting before Australia played South Africa in the 1999 World Cup.

He said: “I don’t know whether anyone has noticed but Herschelle Gibbs has a habit of throwing the ball up before he has caught it. If he catches you stand your ground because it could be borderline not out.’’

Gibbs then famously dropped Steve Waugh with that type of premature celebration.

I once sat next to Warne on a flight to Guyana in the West Indies where he watched vision of Carl Hooper over and over because Hooper had a habit of randomly charging a delivery every couple of overs.

“I’ve got it,’’ he said after endless reviews.

“Each ball he momentarily looks down at the crease before I bowl except, for some reason, when he charges he doesn’t do it and looks at the bowler. You watch I will get him stumped tomorrow.’’

And he did. It looked like just another random dismissal. It wasn’t.

It was Shane Warne being Shane Warne.

Warnie stories … honestly folks, we could go on forever and a game which is suddenly smaller than it was will miss him dearly.