Shane Warne death: James Brayshaw’s ‘freaky’ Koh Samui location at time of incident
Longtime mate James Brayshaw has made a stunning revelation about his whereabouts at the time of Shane Warne’s death, while revealing an ‘effing loud’ car stereo experience with Warnie.
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James Brayshaw has revealed he was in Koh Samui at the time of Shane Warne’s untimely death but was unaware of the tragedy.
Brayshaw, who first played club cricket with Warne in the 80s, recalled his first impressions of the “bogan from Moorabbin”.
“What I can’t believe is that I was actually in Koh Samui at the same time he was with no knowledge of it,’’ Brayshaw said.
“I was exiting when all of this happened and I had no clue he was even there. It was surreal and a bit freaky in that sense.”
Brayshaw was discussing Warne, a great mate of his and Triple M Rush Hour co-host Billy Brownless.
“None of us can believe it Bill,’’ he said.
“I first met Warnie in 1987, it was 35 years ago, I’ll never forget it. We were playing in a second XI game.
“He was this bogan from Moorabbin, he had the mullet, the earrings, he had a Nissan Skyline. He invited me to come and sit in his car and he had the fluffy dice off the rear view mirror. He said ‘I want you to come and listen to my $5000 stereo system’.
“He had AC/DC going and it was that effing loud that the windscreen was going in and out. I remember him looking at me going how good. It summed him up. His passion was there on display, his passion for his car or his sound system, it didn’t matter what he was was doing, he loved every second of it.
“I watched him go from a fat kid that ripped huge leg spinners to the greatest of his kind to ever play the game.”
Brayshaw said he was the most competitive cricketer but also just a sheer genius.
“Shane’s life was a complete circus,’’ he said.
“For the whole time I knew him, stuff was going around his world that no one knew had ever happened. Suddenly Charlie Watts would walk in or Hugh Jackman, Chris Martin and the first thing they’d say is ‘where’s Shane?’.
“We’re like, here’s a global superstar and Warnie was just a mate. He and Wasim Akram were comfortably the best bowlers I ever saw play the game.”
Warne’s good friend and former AFL star Brendan Fevola gave an emotional tribute to Warne.
I WISH I DID’: TEARFUL PONTING’S WARNE REGRET
A tearful Ricky Ponting says he wishes he told spin legend and good mate Shane Warne how much he loved him before his untimely death last week.
“I didn’t say that to him and I wish I did,” the emotional Aussie great said.
“The more people talking about Shane, the thing that will shine through will be just how loyal he was to family and friends and how loved he was.
“He had the energy that drew you to him and that is a trait that not a lot of people have.”
Ponting, who captained the leg-spinning icon during one of Australia’s most successful eras, said he was now haunted by Warne’s voice.
“I have had the TV on watching the tributes, but every time I hear his voice I have to turn it off,” Ponting told the ICC Cricket Review.
“It’s been a tough couple of days, but it makes us a bit more aware of things I probably need to pay more attention to and there is stuff there for all of us to learn.”
Wife Rianna relayed the news Warne, 52, had died of a suspected heart attack in Thailand while Ponting was getting his children ready for morning netball.
“Rianna looked at her phone and told me the news about Warnie,” he said.
“I grabbed the phone out of her hand to look at it and I couldn’t believe it and it is still the same now.
“It was so raw to me I couldn’t really speak and every time I thought about him and our experiences and our journey together I just got short for words.”
Ponting vowed to carry on Warne’s legacy as a teacher.
“He was a teacher through his commentary and I’ve seen hundreds of photos over the last 24 hours of all the spinners he worked with,” Ponting said.
“He helped Steve Smith in his younger days and Rashid Khan has been catching up with him — just imagine the conversations they would have had.
“So I feel it is now up to me whenever I get an opportunity to just let the world know what he was like and pass on some of the things I learnt from him.”
INDIAN GREAT’S TASTELESS WARNE SWIPE
Indian great Sunil Gavaskar has made a tasteless comment about Shane Warne, labelling the cricket legend’s record against India as “pretty ordinary” just hours after after his tragic death.
Asked if Warne was the greatest spinner that he had seen, Gavaskar said he believed Test cricket’s greatest wicket-taker and former Sri Lanka bowler Muttiah Muralitharan, as well as India’s litany of spinners, ranked ahead of Warne.
“No, I wouldn’t say that no. For me the Indian spinners and Muttiah Muralitharan were better than Shane Warne,” he told India Today.
“Look at Shane Warne’s record against India,” Gavaskar said. “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.
“Muttiah Muralitharan with a greater success he had against India, I would rank him over Warne in my book.”
Both legendary spinners boasted incredible bowling records, with Muralitharan claiming 800 wickets at an average of 22.7 in his 133 matches, while Warne took 708 at an average of 25.4 across 145 Tests.
Shane Warne's passing away is a big shock....He mastered the art which is very difficult to master which is leg spin: Sunil Gavaskar. #NewsToday#Cricket#RIPShaneWarne | @sardesairajdeeppic.twitter.com/6KqSHf6Tes
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) March 4, 2022
FEV’S EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE TO WARNE
Shane Warne’s good friend and former AFL star Brendan Fevola gave an emotional tribute to Warne on Monday.
Speaking through tears at times, he said: “We caught up for poker nights and it was always at Shane’s house. Shane’s garage, holiday house, he was the life of the party, life of the poker. All our poker mates, big grown men bawling their eyes out. I didn’t stop crying all day Saturday.
“He touched so many lives. It wasn’t just his cricket, it was his off field stuff.
“So many people could relate to it and I stuffed up a lot in my life. I learnt off Shane, you just own up to it and then people can’t have a crack at you.”
Fevola said people underestimated how much he did for kids and charity.
“He was a great human and I was lucky enough to be in the jungle with Shane but I saw first hand as well, he did so such for kids,’’ Fevola said on his Fox FM breakfast show, Fifi, Fev and Nick.
“He’d cop a lot of s*** off people, but he did so much for kids and he raised millions and millions of dollars. He didn’t have to but he did it because he knew he had a yardstick where he could touch people’s lives and he had the friends who could donate money.
“He did golf days and gee that man was good at everything. He played for St Kilda and he always used to say to me I would have been a superstar full forward if it wasn’t for Tony Lockett because he was there at the same time.
“He loved his Saints... he loved the footy.”
Fevola got emotional thinking about Warne’s three children.
“He loved his kids, Jacko, Brooke and Summer, and I can’t stop thinking about them. Those poor kids, they’ve lost their dad and they shared their lives with their dad and now they’ve got to grieve with the world. I just hope they know their dad was one of the best people that anyone would ever meet. He was a great man.”
Warne’s manager James Erskine said he already had Coldplay frontman Chris Martin on the phone asking when the state funeral would be held and expected many people to fly in for it.
“I’ve just had Chris Martin’s lot on the phone, (asking) what date’s it going to be, we’d like to be there,” Erskine told 3AW.
“They’ll give enough time for people to be able to come from overseas because there’ll be a lot of people who’ll want to come. Just the impact, reading and talking to people in the UK, it’s just been huge. I think the Times had 14 pages of Warne and they did it for Muhammad Ali and Prince Philip, but that’s the sort of level we’re talking about.”
WARNIE’S CLASSIC LAST MEAL, STUNNING GENEROSITY REVEALED
Fresh details have emerged about Shane Warne’s final days in Thailand, including one staggering final act of generosity for one of his great mates.
Tom Hall was part of the group holidaying with Warne and was also staying at the Samujan resort on the island of Koh Samui.
Hall, who is the CEO of media website The Sporting News, paid tribute to Warne with a column showing just how caring and compassionate the king of spin was.
While watching the Australia v Pakistan Test, Warne told Hall he had a gift for him.
“You’re never quite sure what that means with Shane; it could be a bottle of his 708 gin, his fragrance, some book he thought I would enjoy or a random T-shirt,” Hall wrote.
“He came back with an armful of clothes looking like he had been at a yard sale. Neo and Gaz were obviously aware of what was going on as Neo pulled out his camera.
“Shane had been working with me at The Sporting News for the past year or so and he presented me with his jumper from the 2005 Ashes Test, his 2008 IPL shirt and a one-day international shirt and cap to place in the TSN offices in Australia and the UK.
“Amazing gifts I knew the teams would love and cherish.
“As we went through the shirts and jumpers, more stories came out about the first IPL season and how he had inherited a team which had several unknown players in it.
“They lost their opening game, but Shane told (Rajasthan Royals owner) Manoj Badale, ‘Don’t worry mate, we’ll be OK’. They promptly won the rest of their games and the inaugural IPL title.”
Hall and Warne then grabbed some dinner, which would turn out to be Warne’s final meal.
Throughout his career, Warne was known for his love of baked beans and Hawaiian pizzas but it was another Aussie classic that he enjoyed on this night.
The choice of cuisine couldn’t have summed him up any better.
“I have dined with Shane in many fine establishments, but rather than sample some of the local Thai fare, we tuck into a plate of Vegemite on toast. Shane chomping away: ‘Geez, you can’t beat Vegemite with some butter, always great wherever you are in the world’.
“An Australian through and through — this was to turn out to be his last meal. Ever the caring father, as I was leaving, he headed up to his bedroom to call his kids.”
HOWARD REMEMBERS WARNIE THE ‘GENIUS
Joe Barton
Former Australian Prime Minster John Howard has remembered Shane Warne as a ‘genius’ – but says he never considered asking the spin king for any bowling advice.
While Warne famously delivered the Ball of the Century to England’s Mike Gatting to announce himself to work cricket, Howard secured a moment of infamy when sending down a couple of less impressive deliveries when visiting earthquake-ravaged Pakistan in 2005.
Howard bowled three balls, none of which made it to the batsman, all bouncing several times and one failing to even hit the pitch.
Having endured years of embarrassment as the footage is replayed, Howard is comfortable seeing the funny side of it these days – but never went cap in hand to Warne for hints.
“We saw quite a bit of each other. He was a very personable man,” Howard told 2GB on Monday.
“I don’t claim to be a close friend of his, but I always enjoyed meeting him and chatting about things.
“One of the characteristics about him which has come out about his expressions of sorrow is that he was a very thoughtful person.
“I never bothered him for (bowling advice),” Howard added with a chuckle.
“I’m much more of a watcher than a participant in the game. Although I memorably did once when I was Prime Minister, but there you go. People remember that and you laugh at it.”
Howard said he, like many Australians, was shocked and saddened at Warne’s sudden passing.
“Utter shock,” he said.
“The age of 52, somebody you associate with physical achievement, athleticism, physical skill, it’s always a huge shock. Terrible loss for his three children and his parents. They will feel it very much.
“But he was a genius, and the record books have been traced over in the last 48 hours. His (708 Test) wickets, that capacity to turn a match around from seemingly hopeless positions… was just unbelievable he was able to do that.”
‘PIGEON, KILL HIM’: THE ONE RIVAL WHO GOT UNDER WARNE’S SKIN
Ben Horne
One of Shane Warne’s fiercest enemies has revealed that their relationship was doused in mutual respect.
Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga was one of the cricketers who slipped under Warne’s skin over the years, causing some major flashpoints on the field.
Before the 1996 World Cup which Sri Lanka won, defeating Australia in the final, Ranatunga declared in the press that Warne was overrated.
The rotund, silky lefthander with soft hands played Warne as well as anyone and was one of the few batsmen who had a respectable record against ‘The King.’
Once in a one-dayer in Adelaide when Warne was captaining Australia, Glenn McGrath was at the top of his mark about to bowl to Ranatunga.
Warne said to McGrath, “Pigeon, kill him.”
Ranatunga had a way of captaining his team that really annoyed the Australians, but even the greatest of rivals have come together to pay their respects to Warne and his family following his devastating death, aged 52.
“I was deeply saddened to hear the sudden demise of one of the greatest cricketers the world has ever seen,” Ranatunga said in a statement to News Corp.
“As many people know, Shane and I had a very confrontational and a competitive relationship on the field, but we also had immense mutual respect for each other.
“Shane’s passing is a major loss, not only for Australian cricket, but also for the cricketing community around the world.”
Ranatunga smashed a century in Colombo against a young Warne in 1992. Ian Healy rated him the best player of spin in the world at the time, for the way he methodically dissected every spinner he faced.
He was one of the few world figures strong enough to stand up against Australia and Warne.
But now Ranatunga stood alongside the Australian cricket community in paying his respects.
“He had so much love and respect for the game of cricket and the cricketing knowledge he had will be an immense loss.”
“Shane’s achievements, both on and off the field, have been legendary, and the contributions he has made to the game of cricket will live on forever.
“Our deepest sympathies to the Warne family. May he rest in peace.”
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