The tragic passing away of Shane Warne has hit everyone hard. It was his manager, James Erskine, who was among the first persons to learn of his death, and he was given the regretful task of informing Shane Warne’s family. Warne, arguably the greatest ever bowler, died on Friday, aged 52, while on a vacation in Thailand due to a suspected heart attack.
Fox Cricket:
“I got a phone call at 10:37 last night from our guy Andrew Neophitou in Thailand. Shane decided that he was going to have three months off, and this was just the start of it. He only arrived the night before. Then suddenly . . . they were going to have a drink at 5 and Neo (Neophitou) knocked on his door at 5:15 because Warnie was always on time.”
“What happened was he went in there and said come on you are going to be late and then realised that something was wrong. He turned him over and gave him CPR. That lasted about 20 minutes then obviously the ambulance came. They took him to the hospital which was about a 20 minute drive. I got a phone call about 45 minutes later saying that he was pronounced dead,” he added.
The manager further revealed that he had been asked to tell Shane Warne’s family – his father, ex-wife and children – of the sad news. Erskine said that it was difficult task to do and was reluctant to tell this to Warne’s children.
“It is like all these things you work on adrenaline. I was talking to Keith last night when his son was dead. He was going to go and see the three children and talking to Brooke and to Jackson I was not going to tell them that their father was dead because he wasn’t at that stage pronounced dead. But I said it looks pretty grim.
“Simone (Warne’s ex-wife and mother of his three children) had gone to pick up the youngest child Summer and we then called Simone and said, listen you better tell them when you are all together that Shane has passed away,” Erskine recalled.
Shane Warne was a legend of the sport and a larger than life character, which is why it is so hard to believe he is gone, expressed the cricketer’s manager.
“It is one of these things that when someone is larger than life you don’t expect them to die. I think that is probably a very good analogy. You don’t expect someone to die at 52. You don’t expect Shane Warne to die because he was an extraordinary human being,” he said.
Shane Warne had made his debut against India in 1992, and went on to attain greatness in spin bowling, claiming 1001 international wickets – 293 in ODIs and 708 Test wickets – a tally only bettered by Sri Lanka’s Muralitharan. He won five Ashes series and the 1999 World Cup, playing a crucial role in all of them.
