Eddie McGuire has revealed what his last conversation with his great mate Shane Warne was before the cricket icon’s tragic and sudden death in Thailand.
McGuire, like many, was left stunned when Warne was pronounced dead in the early hours of Saturday Australian time.
The pair were great friends, building a relationship over a number of decades while working together with the Nine Network as well as the Melbourne Stars, where Warne was once captain and McGuire once president.
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McGuire said he’d last spoken to Warne earlier this week.
“A couple of days ago, texting, and on WhatsApp and sending stupid memes to each other and laughing and talking about things,” he told Nine’s TODAY when asked about the pair’s last chat.
“I know Sam Newman said this morning he spoke to him only a couple of days ago, trying to find him a car and things. He was in town. He texted me. He was catching up with Piers Morgan.
“He had such an amazing network. Everyone. I remember going do his house for a barbecue and he surprised me, he had one of the owners of Glasgow Celtic there.”
When asked by Tony Jones what he’d tell his mate if he had the opportunity for one last conversation, McGuire’s message was simple.
“I’d say, ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks for everything’,” McGuire said.
“Thanks for making Test cricket great again. Thanks for making leg spin great again.
“For all the things he did, Warnie, you think he should be a fast bowler but he fixed up Test cricket, he was great at one-day, he won the World Cup against the odds.
“He fought back from mishaps along the journey, which showed we always say, as Churchill said, when you’re walking through hell, keep walking. He did.
“He had an amazing relationship with Simone post his divorce, but also with his three kids, and they’re just wonderful kids, and they’re just wonderful kids. You meet his kids and you see Simone and Shane.
“You just thank him for what he gave, and I hope that that’s what we remember him for, for the great moments on the ground and for those who were lucky enough to have been in his orbit for the amazing generosity of spirit that he gave to so many people.”
Despite being four years removed from international cricket when the Big Bash League began in the summer of 2011-12, Warne was undoubtedly its biggest drawcard. McGuire admitted that the competition couldn’t have grown without the legend’s input.
“Shane Warne was the reason Big Bash popped there’s no doubt about that. I saw it first hand,” he said.
“He recruited all the great players to the Stars. He called that ball when he was mic’d up.
“There’s a million stories of Shane Warne that would be most people’s best story of their life that have been forgotten in history because he’s been so great.”
McGuire also gave an insight into what it was like being in the orbit of the larger-than-life Warne.
“What I remember of Shane is for a bloke who was so famous, so talented, had so much, I’ve never known somebody who was prepared to give so much to anyone, not only in his immediate orbit, but anyone who came across his path,” he said.
“All the joys that he had in life, he just wanted to give you a drink, to come to a barbecue.
“I remember we were at a barbecue hosted by him and Liz Hurley for the Melbourne Stars. He had park cricketers there. We had to boot them out of his pool in the end. He did that every week. Poker games and charities and the amount of sessions in the nets with Shane Warne for kids, things like that.
“He ate well from the smorgasbord of life, but he more than replenished what he took. He gave and he goes away, a net giver of life. No doubt about it.”
McGuire said he’d been in mourning in the early hours of Saturday alongside some of the Stars family.
“It’s like the cosmos came together when those messages were going out,” he said.
“As a long-time president you don’t want to be getting phone calls at 1:30 am in the morning on a Saturday, and got the message from my son that Shane had died.
“Sir Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Kevin Pietersen, all our friends in the Northern Hemisphere. Sam Newman, all these different people, all the Melbourne Stars family, where Shane and I had such great times together.
“We’ve all half gone back to sleep, sat up all night and we’re all talking to each other again this morning, we’re all in tears, we’re all devastated, and that’s the only way I can say it.
“We’re all laughing at the same time over this amazing life force that was Shane Warne, and then that devastates us even more, because the star, pardon the pun, just turned so brightly and now it’s dimmed.”
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