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The death of Shane Warne

The 52-year old died of a heart attack in a villa in Koh Samui in Thailand. Here’s what we know about the circumstances:

• Warne was at the start of a week-long holiday with a group of male friends—including his manager. 
• He retired to his room after lunch to watch a Pakistan-Australia match—and was supposed to meet up for dinner at 5 pm.
• When he was late, they entered his room and found him unresponsive—and attempted CPR.
• Local medics were called and Warne was rushed to a nearby hospital—where he was declared dead.

Also this: There was no alcohol or drugs found in his body—but there was blood on the pillows and towels—indicating he coughed up fluids at some point. According to the Thai police, Warne had a history of asthma and heart issues. The spinner—who struggled with his weight for years—had also just completed an extreme fluids-only diet for 14 days. His manager said: “It was a bit … all or nothing. It was either white buns with butter and lasagne stuffed in the middle or he would be having black and green juices.” Warne was also a lifelong smoker—and had been put on a ventilator when he contracted Covid.

About those tributes: Almost everyone in the cricket and entertainment business mourned his death with grace—except Gavaskar who went on TV to dismiss Warne’s talent:

“Look at Shane Warne’s record against India. It was pretty ordinary. In India, he got five wickets only once in Nagpur, and that too because Zaheer Khan swung wildly against him to give him a fifer. Because he did not have much success against Indian players who were very good players of spin, I don’t think I would call him the greatest.”

The origin story

The basic deets: Warne was raised in the suburbs in a loving family with very little interest in cricket. In fact, he wanted to play Australian Rules Football. As a teenager, he was dropped from the local club for being “too fat and slow”—destroying his childhood dream:

“I never wanted to play cricket – don’t get me wrong, I love cricket – but I am AFL through and through. I love the physicality of it, I love the high-flying marks, I love being able to kick a goal—I just love the sport. I didn’t have girlfriends, school wasn’t important—it was just football and that’s all I ever wanted to do.”

The childhood injury: When he was in kindergarten, Warne broke both his legs—and had to move around in a trolley using his hands. He attributes the powerful strength of his wrists to that injury.

The Gatting ball: Warne burst into the spotlight when he got English batsman Mike Gatting’s wicket on his very first ball during his Ashes debut in 1993. It was an insane leg break that pitched outside leg and then clipped the off-stump:

Warne would later say: 

“But it was a bloody good fluke. In 25 years of playing international cricket ... I never did it again. There were plenty of times I bowled a similar delivery but didn’t take a wicket. It sort of changed my whole life really on and off the field.”

In that one moment though Warne single-handedly revived the lost art of spin in Australia—and went on to become a legendary spinner feared by batsmen around the world. 

A long rivalry with Sachin: Warne played his very first series against India in 1992. And he bowled for the first time to Sachin Tendulkar—who would go on to become his career-long nemesis—at a Prime Minister’s XI game in Canberra:

A month later, at the first test in Sydney, Warne would not be as lucky—and was walloped silly by both Tendulkar and Ravi Shastri. In the first four minutes of this video, Ian Chappell tells the wonderful story of how Tendulkar diligently prepared to take on Warne:

A long friendship with Sachin: The two men went on to become close friends. In a recent documentary on Warne, Tendulkar told the funny story of Warne coming home for dinner—having asked for “whatever we cooked at home, authentic Indian style.” He spent the evening trying to get rid of a far-too-spicy chicken from his plate—and ended the night cooking sausages and mash in the kitchen. Also funny, this old Pepsi ad with the two of them:

About that IPL connection: Warne was also the first player to be sold at the inaugural auction—at a base price of $450,000 to Rajasthan Royals. He finagled a deal where he was both captain and coach—and led the team to a title win that first year. Coach Warne’s punishment of choice: making a player carry Pinky—a pink doll—for breaking a rule.

Warne’s personality: in his professional life was a peculiar mixture of arrogance and neediness. He said of his attitude:

“Standing at the top of my mark with a ball in my hand and I looked down the pitch, it was my domain. I owned it… Whether it be a word, whether it is to grab a bit of silence, whether it is to eyeball someone, whether it was a little sledge, I was a man on a mission. I wasn’t taking any prisoners. I wouldn’t have liked to play against me. I was nasty.”

Yet his teammates remember Warne as a needy colleague who always needed validation and praise: “Even when he came off the field and had a good day he’d say,’ Was that OK?’ He always needed feedback.” And there is no better example of this combination of brashness and vulnerability than this infamous ‘stump dancing’ clip:

The Warnie school of scandal

Shane Warne’s life both on-and off-field was never dull—and most of the unnecessary drama was entirely self-induced.

The betting dramas: In 1998, the Australian cricket board was forced to admit that Warne and his teammate Mark Waugh had been secretly fined for giving information to an Indian bookie—for “providing basic cricketing information: the weather forecast, team changes, state of the pitch and so on.” This was made even more embarrassing by the fact that Warne had called out Pakistani captain Salim Malik in 1995 for attempting to bribe him.

The diet pill drama: In 2003, Warne was banned from cricket for 12 months after the Australian Cricket Board’s anti-doping committee found him guilty of using a weight loss diuretic—typically used to hide doping. To be fair, Warne claimed he’d been given the pills by his mom so he could look good on TV—which, knowing Warnie, sounds quite credible.

The infidelity drama: Athletes are rarely angels but Warne is one of the few who had to suffer the humiliation of having his personal life dragged onto the playing field. Just before the 2005 Ashes series in England, tabloids broke the story of Warne fooling around with two women. In response, his angry wife took the kids and headed back to Oz. But Warne had to play the rest of the series with English fans singing: “Where‘s your missus gone? Far, far away.” Warne called it the lowest point in his life: 

“I would play cricket, go back to the hotel and raid the mini-bar. I’d just sit in my room by myself and just drink. I was in my hotel room crying…f**k, you dickhead—just berating myself for some of the things I did.”

FYI: Though Australia lost the series, Warne took a whopping 40 wickets at 19.92 in a losing cause.

As for the rest: Warne would go on to get engaged to Liz Hurley—just months after her separation with tycoon Arun Nayar. And the two were the ‘it’ couple of cricket until 2013. Over the years, the most embarrassing events of his lovelife have been tabloid fare—be it noisy sex parties heard by neighbours or hot dates with women he found on Tinder. And he may be the only cricketer who has had to confess to using fillers and Botox:) Though for the past couple of years, Warnie has been self-confessedly single and happy to play doting dad.

The bottomline: Warne was a larger-than-life character who was always authentically himself—in an era where every word and action of a professional athlete is carefully calibrated to serve the brand. Back in 2015, Warne claimed that a movie producer was planning a movie about his IPL stint:

“A guy has written a script, his company wants to shoot it, so it’s basically a Hollywood movie shot for India. And they’re basing it on my story of how we put together the Royals in 2008 and they’ve ‘Hollywood-ised’ it. It's all sorts of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll stuff.”

Lol! We hope someone will make that movie one day.