The King is Dead: a Shane Warne tribute
“I smiled to myself and thought, wow that was fun” – Shane Warne.
Like many fans, we’ve spent the last 48 hours in complete shock at the death of Shane Warne, which genuinely feels like the loss of a good friend.
After bingeing on obituaries, memoirs and pictures of him eating tinned spaghetti on toast, it felt only right to compile the best bits for a special edition of The Upshot.
Warne has the distinction among sporting greats of being his both best player in his field and also the most fun character. In fact, we can’t think of another all-time great who we’d rather go on the piss with.
So grab yourself a toasted cheese sandwich and light up a smoko, as we relive Warnie’s finest moments.
Bowling Shane
Many writers will do better justice to Warne’s cricketing genius than us. But we can’t get into the more colourful stuff without briefly basking in his outrageous talent.
His most famous wicket came from his first ever delivery in the Ashes, back in 1993, when he cleaned up Mike Gatting’s stumps with a ball that turned sideways. They called it The Ball of the Century.
https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_UK/status/1499753149262974980
And then, 12 years later, he did it again, bowling Andrew Strauss in similar fashion in the 2005 Ashes.
https://twitter.com/jarleth_eaton/status/1499759611938844681
But it wasn’t just his ability to rip a ball harder than anyone which made him such a threat. A true showman, he created pure theatre every time he had the ball. And he had a hell of a cricketing brain.
‘If there’s an opposite to a foodie, I’m it’
Shane Warne’s aversion to fine dining is legendary. When Australia toured India in 1998, a Qantas flight delivered 1,900 tins of baked beans in a three ton crate emblazoned with the words “Shane Warne, India”.
Following various run-ins with spicy food on the subcontinent, he resorted to travelling with his own toaster and a huge supply of processed cheese.
And after spending Christmas Day with Warne last year, fellow pundit Michael Vaughan recalled “all of us eating Turkey, beef and the usual Christmas trimmings while the King of Spin stuck to his lasagne sandwiches plastered with butter.”
In his autobiography, he explained his philosophy:
I reckon sitting in a restaurant is a waste of time, the same as cooking … Food gets in the way of a good time. Eat, go, party. I’m all about atmosphere and vibe … I’ll eat if I’m hungry, and I won’t if I’m not. I like hot chips, pasta, pizza, white-bread cheese sandwiches and apples – everything else I can take or leave, mainly leave. I do like ribs and roast pork too. But if there’s an opposite to a foodie, I’m it.
What it’s all about
Ahead of the 2005 Ashes, Warne was captaining a Hampshire team which included rising star Kevin Pietersen, who had yet to make his test debut.
One day KP took Warne aside and said “can I have a quick chat to you about the Ashes and what’s it all about”.
“Sure,” Shane replied. “Let’s discuss it over a game of golf”.
They had a good game and the match was all square going into the final hole. Both players hit their tee shots down the left side of the fairway.
As they walk down, Warne spots a ball in the rough next to a tree and asks, “KP, can I have a drop shot? I can’t hit this.”
KP says no, so Warne tries to get his body in a position to hit it, but he can’t.
“I can’t hit this, I need a drop,” he insists. But Pietersen refuses to budge, telling him, “You’re not allowed a drop”.
“Are you sure?” Shane asks, a twinkle in his famous blue and green eyes.
“Positive,” says KP.
“Good, cos that’s your ball. And that’s what Ashes cricket is all about”.
‘If I didn’t love sex that much I probably wouldn’t have got myself in half the trouble I have’
It is simply impossible for us to talk about Shane Warne without reflecting on his prolific shagging career.
We’ve been in the stat cave all morning crunching the numbers, and we’re pretty certain Shane’s number of sexual partners eclipsed his 1,000 international wickets.
You’ve heard before about Warnie’s achilles heel, sexting, which got him into a lot of trouble.
His voracious appetite for women could be cruel on others, like when he persuaded his wife Simone to move to England with him.
As she stepped off the 24 hour flight she was greeted by a tabloid front page describing her husband’s recent threesome in lurid detail.
But it could also be very funny. Take this story from his memoirs…
“I was in the middle of a match between Hampshire and Middlesex. About nine o’clock, a text pinged through: ‘You should be here with me.’
“Immediately following on from the text, she [an old friend, Coralie] sent me a picture of her kissing a girlfriend. They were in London, I was in Southampton. I texted back saying I would be there in an hour.”
After Warne “grabbed a bottle of vodka and two bottles of champagne and hit the road” one thing led to another and “at the bras and knickers point they got out a massive inflatable sex toy – kind of silly drunken stuff”.
“She was with a friend, they were both pissed and, if I’m honest, it was kind of a fun vibe.
“I started kissing them both, clothes off and then, from nowhere, they pulled a bed out of the wall. Well, we just went for it.”
The story appeared in the News of the World that weekend, complete with grainy photos of Shane stripping out of his Playboy pants.
‘I smoke, I drank, I bowled a bit of leg spin’
Perhaps Shane’s appetite for fine dining was suppressed by his 50-a-day smoking habit. Nicorette once paid him £80k to kick the cigs, but he was photographed sucking on a dart in Barbados within weeks.
And last year he joked: “I thought if I smoked 100 cigarettes a day I could kill Covid. It didn’t really work, I ended up on a ventilator.”
He generally avoided beer in favour of wine and, later, vodka red bull. He sometimes felt obliged to live up to the myth of Shane the lager lout, though.
Back in the early 90s, when most of the Aussies were religious about having a beer at the end of a day’s play, he would stick to water.
But on one occasion two prominent Aussie Rules footballers who Warne idolised came to the dressing room.
He quickly reached for some cans of VB lager, cracking one open and throwing the others to his heroes.
This surprised his team mates and they quickly pointed out, “But Shane, you never drink beer.”
Warne insisted: “Nahh, I love a beer at the end of the day lads, what you talking about?”
So for the rest of the season after every day’s play, someone would crack open a can and leave it next to Shane’s bag.
What colour was the couch?
For all his reputation as an absolute gent off the pitch, Shane could be a real bastard on it. Andrew Strauss tells of an excellent exchange during the 2005 Ashes, which you can watch here.
His most famous victim was Daryll Cullinane, the South African batsman who got out 12 times to Warnie’s leg spin and who once admitted he’d been seeing a psychiatrist to help him deal with Warne.
On their next meeting, Warne seized on this, relentlessly asking him questions between deliveries: “What colour was the couch? Were they hourly sessions? Did you pay by the hour?”
It’s well worth watching Warne tell the full Cullinane story. Finally, there’s the tale of Melbourne-born Adam Hollioake making his first appearance against Australia.
Hollioake recalled: “I knew when I came out to bat, I’m gonna get it. You just know it.
“[They said] ‘Here he is playing his first game for England, all his family back in Australia wishing he was playing for Australia — Uncle Rex, Aunty Jan’. I was like, ‘How the hell do you guys know Aunty Jan?’
“All I can go to in my mind is, I knew Warnie was a bit of a womanizer at the time. Has Warnie been with my Aunty Jan?
“As I faced my first ball in Test cricket, that’s all I can think about. My first ball is just a blur. I’m just trying to solve the puzzle: has Warnie been around to see my Aunty Jan?”
Quick hits
🥪 Fans are leaving cheese sandwiches and cigarettes under Shane’s statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
❤️ Shane Warne got off with Ridley Scott‘s girlfriend in the toilets at Russell Crowe’s wedding.
🧠 Heading into a crunch game with South Africa at the 1999 World Cup, Warne told his teammates not to walk off until Herschelle Gibbs had fully caught the ball. He had noticed Gibbs tended to throw it up too early as he caught it. Gibbs duly dropped Steve Waugh doing this.
📰 We really liked this article by Barney Ronay, which captures the feeling for fans who never met him.
📺 Best videos:
- Watch 60 seconds of the Spin King bamboozling batsmen.
- Witness his Peter Pan spirit during this moment in the commentary box.
- Warne remembers when he was offered $200k to fix a game in Pakistan.
- Shane, a documentary about him in his own words, is on Amazon.
And finally
The great man dances at Trent Bridge after winning the Ashes in the early 90s.
