Shane Warne memorial: From unknowns to superstars, they bowled up to honour a local lad with global reach
Shane Warne’s final exit was always going to be big: a global audience of a billion people and the largest piece of real estate in the MCG now carrying his name.
Like just about everything in his life, Shane Warne’s final exit was always going to be big.
A global audience of a billion people, the largest piece of real estate in the MCG now carrying his name, tens of thousands of mostly line and length ordinary people at his state memorial service.
The stars were on the screen or at the ground in numbers as well, the Warne collective locked in their own long, sorrowful farewell that started on March 4 and has transcended the sport that he dominated.
Kylie Minogue, Hugh Jackman, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Kelly Slater, Greg Norman, Molly Meldrum, Scott Morrison and even gangland war survivor Mick Gatto were there one way or another.
The crowd was as eclectic as Warne’s life after cricket.
His son Jackson said his 52-year-old father always played to the crowd; he would have been buoyed by the size of the unconventional service.
“He actually played better when there was more people,” he said before the service began.
Elton John dedicated Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me to Warne’s three children, telling the service from the US that the leg spinner was “mesmerising”.
“He was brilliant,” he said.
Allan Border described him as a genius, Mark Taylor said he was genuine, former England captain Nasser Hussain had him as an entertainer while Brian Lara, one of the greatest batsmen of all, said he was the king.
And Merv Hughes, the former Australian paceman? “Bogan. Dead-set bogan.”
But he was much more than this to Hughes, who told the service he felt sorry for anyone who never met Warne. “As good as he was on the cricket field, he was five times better off it,” he said.
Broadcaster Ray Martin outlined how Warne had raised $4m through his foundation, helping victims of the tsunami, while his father, Keith, spoke of the lengths Warne went to help survivors of the Black Saturday disaster.
The stories of his relentless generosity are all true, repeat visits to children stricken with cancer and fans who had lost their way.
Adam Gilchrist, the former Australian wicketkeeper, walked into the ground ahead of the service still wondering what had gone wrong. “I think we are all still stunned. He was a very generous man,” he said. “He enjoyed the limelight without necessarily wanting to be the main attraction.”
It wasn’t just about the well known, with thousands arriving at the ground from all parts of Australia, including three generations of the Dowton family who travelled 11 hours from Dubbo in central NSW to be part of the memorial.
Scott Dowton, who bought his eight and nine-year-old girls and their grandmother to the service, said he had looked up to Warne. “I had three screens and a phone ready to buy tickets as soon as they were released,” the 37-year-old said.
Rohini Dalpathadu, 70, travelled from Carrum Downs in Melbourne’s southeast to honour Warne, noting his charity work extended all the way to Sri Lanka.
“I admire Shane Warne for what he has done on and off the field,” she said. “On the field, he was a great cricketer; off the field he was a great charitable person, not only here but in Sri Lanka too.
Outside, Warne’s life-size statue in Yarra Park reminded everyone of how much the MCG was his ground: launching his career there with 7-52 to destroy the West Indies in 1992, an Ashes hat trick in 1994, his 700th wicket in 2006.
As the words on the statue report, the MCG was “where he was a hero”.
Then there was the Warne confidence. “When I was on the field I was in charge,” was one Warne memory.
“I wasn’t afraid, I was a man on a mission.”
Perhaps the best: “I’ve never pretended I’m something I’m not.”
Greta Bradman, granddaughter of the nation’s greatest batsman Don Bradman, is an operatic soprano who sang the national anthem.
Said she of Warne: “He’s the best thing that’s happened to cricket for many, many years.”
Keith Warne told of how he was in awe of his son growing up, shuttling him across Melbourne to cricket, football and tennis, stressing that there was always something extra about his boy.
“We marvelled at his hand-eye co-ordination,” he said.
Coldplay’s Chris Martin performed an acoustic version of the global hit Yellow and likened Warne to a rooster that may or may not have been in the background of the pre-recorded song that had been taped in Central America.
“Chaos and Shane were good friends,” Martin said.
Warne was buried 10 days earlier in a private family service that contrasted greatly to the extravaganza that was his state memorial service.
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