By Chris Barrett, Paul Sakkal, Andrew Wu and James Massola
Koh Samui: Police in Thailand have insisted on sending Shane Warne’s body for an autopsy despite requests from his family to expedite its return to Australia.
The cricketing great’s body will be transferred from the island of Koh Samui to the Thai mainland on Sunday, police said on Saturday night.
Thai forensic investigators had on Saturday examined the hotel room where Warne died on Friday, while Australian consular officials accompanied his devastated friends to speak with police.
Australia’s ambassador to Thailand, Allan McKinnon, arrives at the police station at Bophut on Saturday.Credit: Chris Barrett
Warne, Australia’s greatest bowler, an inspiration to a generation of cricketers and a cultural icon at home and abroad, suffered a suspected heart attack while watching the sport he loved on television at a Thai resort amid a fitness spree. He was 52.
His body has been held at the morgue at Koh Samui Hospital on the eastern side of the holiday island since Friday night.
Thai police Colonel Yuttana Sirisombat told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Saturday evening Warne’s body would be sent by ferry to nearby Surat Thani province on the mainland on Sunday.
Thai police Colonel Yuttana Sirisombat at a press conference on Koh Samui on Saturday.Credit: Chris Barrett
“The hospital on Samui has to check whether Mr Shane Warne was COVID positive or not,” he said.
“If not positive, we are ready to stand by and transfer his body to Surat Thani immediately by ferry. If the test is positive, we will await the doctor’s report about what to do next.”
The Bangkok Post reported that bloodstains were found on the floor of Warne’s room and on bath towels and a pillow.
Asked about reports, the local police chief said: “This issue we are going to keep in the file.”
Warne’s friend Andrew Neophitou had performed CPR on the former player for some 20 minutes before paramedics arrived in the room.
Police said there was no suspicion of foul play and that the room had not been disturbed.
Earlier, he told reporters: “The family contacted us through the [Australian] embassy. They want the body to return to Australia because Mr Warne is a very important person for the country.”
Warne had only arrived on Koh Samui for a five-day visit at the luxury Samujana Villas on Thursday, accompanied by several friends including his business manager Andrew Neophitou, an executive producer on his recently released documentary, and Gareth Edwards, who runs Warne’s website.
The friends of the leg-spin champion and commentator met with police on Saturday at Bophut police station, about a 15-minute drive from the resort on the north-east of the island where they had found Warne unresponsive.
“The family has asked for privacy at this stage,” Mr Neophitou said after meeting with police.
“We really just want to get Shane home. That’s all we want to do.”
Australia’s ambassador Allan McKinnon flew from Bangkok to Koh Samui on Saturday along with consular staff from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He visited the Bophut station twice during the afternoon and evening, first with Warne’s friends and then to discuss arrangements for transporting the body with police.
“I would like to on behalf of Shane Warne’s family and his travelling companions to thank Superintendent Sirisombat and his team at the Bophut police station and the hospital in Koh Samui for facilitating in this process and getting Shane Warne back to Australia as quickly as possible,” McKinnon said.
“They’ve been very compassionate, very efficient and very understanding.”
While Warne’s death was not being treated as suspicious, police were intent on conducting a thorough investigation into his passing.
Superintendent Sirisombat said Warne’s friends had told him he had been suffering from chest pains in Australia and had been seeing a heart doctor there.
Police speak with Shane Warne’s friends on Saturday morning at Samujana Villas in Koh Samui.
Warne’s body would be sent for forensic study in Surat Thani province, but it was unclear on Saturday night how long that process would take.
“We have been collecting evidence to satisfy interest in the investigation. We thank the police working hard on this case,” Superintendent Sirisombat said.
“After this we will continue to collect more evidence and await a result from the doctors. All the information will be put together in a file on this case.”
Family ‘shattered’
The cricketing superstar had been due to fly out of the south-east Asian nation early next week after staying on Koh Samui for five days.
“He was on holiday, having a lie down, siesta, he hadn’t been drinking, he’d been on this diet to lose weight,” Warne’s long-time manager James Erskine said.
Warne’s children Brooke, Summer and Jackson were “shattered” by the news of their father’s death, Erskine said. Warne’s father, Keith, visited his grandchildren in the early hours of Saturday morning to comfort them after the news broke.
Warne – who in 1993 bowled “the ball of the century” on his first Test cricket ball on English soil – took his famous 700th wicket at the MCG in front of his home fans, having grown up in bayside Melbourne.
Tributes flow for Warne
He took 708 Test wickets in a 145-Test career, a record for any Australian and second globally to Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan, who said the global cricket fraternity was in shock.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Warne was “one of only a few that could approach the extraordinary achievements of the great Don Bradman” in Australian cricket. But he was also a giant of the country’s life and story, a “one of a kind” who brought magic to Australian summers.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said Warne was a “phenomenal sportsman” and a legend whose extraordinary innings had ended far too soon.
“When he had the ball in his hand, he was a magician,” he said. “He was a larrikin and an artist, and he changed the game he loved in the process. To watch him in action was just one of the purest joys sport had to offer.”
Warne divided his time between Australia and the United Kingdom, becoming a friend to many English celebrities including singer Ed Sheeran, who said he was “absolutely gutted” by the loss of his “amazing friend”.
Rolling Stones frontman and cricket lover Mick Jagger said he was “so saddened” by Warne’s sudden death. “He brought such joy to the game and was the greatest spin bowler ever,” Jagger tweeted.
The front page of British tabloid The Daily Star lauded “THE GREATEST” while the back pages of Britain’s Guardian called Warne “one of the greatest cricketers of all time, who matched his almost preternatural genius with a carefree air of a kid at play”.
British front pages of cricketer Shane Warne’s deathCredit: Internet
Warne’s family has been offered a state funeral by the federal government, which Morrison said would be arranged in consultation with Cricket Australia and the Victorian government. The state’s premier, Daniel Andrews, announced the MCG’s Great Southern Stand would be renamed the S.K. Warne Stand as “a permanent tribute to an amazing Victorian”.
Just hours before his death, Warne had paid tribute to fellow cricket great Rod Marsh, who died in Adelaide earlier on Friday. Warne had also posted in recent days about being on a fitness spree, or “operation shred” in his words.
Erskine said Warne was relaxing on holiday while getting back in shape, and that the cricketer had not been drinking despite public perceptions he liked alcohol.
“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,” Erskine said.
“He was going to do the things he likes doing ... 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.”
The Indian cricket team observed a minute silence before the start of play on day two of the first Test against Sri Lanka to pay respect for both Warne and Marsh, while the women’s cricket teams of both Australian and England held a moment of silence before a match in New Zealand on Saturday.
In Melbourne, cricket fans came from across Victoria to visit the statue of Warne outside the MCG and pay their respects on Saturday.
Harry Morrow left a can of VB, a meat pie and a packet of cigarettes at Warne’s feet in memory of the man he said “was Australian cricket”. Spending a lot of time in the UK as a child, Morrow said his fondest memories were of watching Warne “rip the English cricket team to shreds”.
“There was a sort of smug satisfaction watching him come out - you’d be like ‘here’s the secret weapon, he’s gonna clean ’em up’, and he always did,” he said.
Two of Warne’s teammates in a Test team that dominated world cricket, captain Ricky Ponting and bowler Glenn McGrath, expressed their grief. Batting legend Ponting said he met Warne at a cricket academy when Ponting was 15, where Warne gave him his nickname of “Punter”.
“Hard to put this into words,” Ponting wrote on Twitter. “The greatest bowler I ever played with or against. RIP King.”
McGrath said Warne had a special ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on the cricket field, and said he carried this attitude off the field.
“There seemed to be never a dull moment ... Rest In Peace my good mate, there’ll never again be anyone like you,” McGrath wrote.
Former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy said he was upset by the death but was not surprised his former teammate died young. Warne’s weight fluctuated during his career; he said in 2019 he had dropped 14 kilograms after weighing about 98 kilograms.
“An early passing didn’t surprise me for Warnie,” Healy told Nine’s Today show. “He didn’t look after his body that well. He yo-yoed up and down.
“He didn’t put much sunscreen on. I thought it would have become skin issues for him over time, but not at 52. And he would have been full of beans right to the end, I bet.”
Muralitharan, who holds the all-time record for Test wickets taken, said the cricket world was in shock. “I was asking people if it was true or if it was fake news,” he told Fox Cricket.
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