sport news Ricky Ponting admits he has to turn the TV down when he hears Shane Warne's ... trends now

The void left by Shane Warne's premature death is such that Ricky Ponting has to turn down the TV whenever he hears his late friend's voice. 

The spin king was elevated to Legend status in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame on Thursday and Ponting voiced an emotional tribute to his former teammate, who died in March at the age of 52 while on holiday in Thailand.

'Since his passing, I don’t know if you’ve been the same at home, but if there’s been any replays of cricket games on, I’ve had to turn it down,' Ponting said to Matthew Hayden on Channel 7.

'You can hear his voice somewhere, and then you go and find where it is in the house and you have to turn it down.

'We all notice the loss most when the summer starts here in Australia. 

'When he’s not here and when you’re not hearing the bold predictions, and you’re not hearing his genius in the commentary box.'

Warne would have been a regular guest in the commentary box this summer for the T20 World Cup, the ODI series against England and the Test series against the West Indies and South Africa.

But Ponting joked the late spin great would be missed far beyond the confines of a commentary box. 

'The fact we don’t get to see him on the golf course and get some money out of him as well through the course of the summer,' he quipped to Hayden.

[He's] Very sadly missed.

In the three-minute video, Ponting described Warne as 'the greatest cricketer of the modern era' and the man who 'single-handedly inspired a generation of boys and girls all around the world' to take up cricket.