New details have emerged of Shane Warne’s unexpected passing with the star’s manager revealing the spin great was watching the cricket before meeting friends for dinner when he suffered a suspected heart attack.
The 52-year-old’s long-time manager James Erskine told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Warne had not been drinking before he was found by his friend Andrew Neophitou, an executive producer on his recently released documentary, who had gone to Warne’s Thailand reisdence before a planned meeting with friends.
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Warne was reportedly found unresponsive with the first Test match between Australia and Pakistan playing on the television. Warne’s trip to Thailand was seen as break before taking up commentating commitments in the UK.
“They were meant to meet some people at 5pm. Neo was next door, he’s always on time,” Erskine said.
“He realised he wasn’t well. He tried to give mouth-to-mouth, tried to resuscitate him, he had no heartbeat, the ambulance came 20 minutes later and an hour and a bit later he was pronounced dead [at the Thai International Hospital].”
Erskine told the publication Warne was last seen about two hours earlier and that he was on a diet, refuting claims the cricket legend was partying.
“He was on holiday, having a lie down, siesta, he hadn’t been drinking, he’d been on this diet to lose weight,” he said.
“He didn’t drink much. Everyone thinks he’s a big boozer but he’s not a big boozer at all. I sent him a crate of wine, 10 years later it’s still there. He doesn’t drink, never took drugs, ever. He hated drugs so nothing untoward.
“He was going to do the things he likes doing. He was going to play in one or two poker competitions, play a lot of golf, be with his kids, that was about it; [to] have time to himself.”
Erskine said the history-maker’s children, Brooke, Summer, and Jackson were “shattered” by the news of their father’s death.
The report stated that Warne’s father, Keith, visited his grandchildren in the early hours of Saturday morning to comfort them after the devastating news broke.
Speaking to Fox Cricket, Erskine expanded on the moment he found out the cricket player-turned commentator was in some trouble.
“I got a phone call at 10.37 last night from our guy in Melbourne called Andrew Neophitou, who was actually with Shane in Thailand,” Erskine told Fox Cricket.
“Shane had sort of decided he was going to have three months off and in fact he wanted a year off, and I said ‘there’s no way you can have a year off, they would’ve forgotten you by a year,’ so he decided to have three months off.
“And this was just the start of it, and they’d only arrived the day or night before.
“They were going to have a drink at 5pm or go and meet someone to go out and have a drink at 5pm, and Neo knocked on his door at 5.15 because Warnie is always on time.
“And he went in there and said ‘come on, you’re going to be late’ and then realised something was wrong.”
Erskine revealed he was given the difficult task of telling Warne’s family the terrible news.
“It is like all these things you work on adrenaline,” Erskine said.
“You are not much help to anyone if you are a blubbering mess. I’m very lucky my mind works clinically.
“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.”
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