Pakistan’s Yasir Shah has done it the hard way to get to Test cricket and he thanks Australia legspin great Shane Warne for providing the inspiration.

Warne, the second leading wicket-taker in Test history, who retired in January 2007, inspired Yasir to take up the art of legspin in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

After claiming 3-66 on debut on Friday on day three of the first Test against Australia, including the prize wicket of David Warner for 133, Yasir was boosted by Warne’s comment on Twitter.

“Just switched on the Tv & watching Aus V Pak in Dubai. I like the look of this leggie Yasir Shah, plenty of energy & nice variations of pace,” Warne tweeted.

Speaking in Urdu, Yasir described Warne as a legend.

“Shane Warne was my motivation,” he said.

“I started bowling leg breaks after watching him bowl on TV.

“Then a friend of mine sent me a video of Warne from London and I used to watch it every day and tried to copy his action and the way he used to bowl.”

Yasir toiled away at domestic level in a troubled part of Pakistan for over a decade, since the age of 15, before making his Test debut at 28.

“There were no grounds in SWABI (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province) so I had to go to Peshawar academy to play,” he said.

“Then we had a few grounds in Swabi and then I played there.”

Yasir said his debut was a big occasion and nerves had affected him.

“I was concentrating on line and length so that’s why I was bowling a bit faster and also to bowl at one place but later I changed my pace,” he said.

The right-armer bowled left-hander Warner with a sharply turning delivery. Warner played inside it and later described it as a “half-tracker”.

“My aim was to keep it to one place and I was very happy to get him out because we needed his wicket,” Yasir said.

“I was a bit nervous because the occasion was big. But then I became normal and bowled with a plan.”