T H E W O R L D ’ S F I N E S T B O O K M A K E R : TA K I N G B E T S S I N C E 1 8 8 2 • F I T Z D A R E S . C O M • S I X T E E N T H E D I T I O N , S U M M E R 2 0 2 2 • N O U N D E R 2 1 s
CANADA CALLING Breaking the ice in style in Toronto
QATAR BUILD-UP The odd prospect of a winter World Cup
TENNIS BRAWLS Why sport must do the right thing
BY WILLIAM WOLFE
BY MARK POUGATCH
BY JOHN INVERDALE
SAINT &
Warnie: England’s nemesis, my mate
OODNESS, THERE IS SO MUCH we will miss about Shane Warne. He was very funny, and great fun. He was naughty but in the best sense, and smart, in the streetwise sense. He made people happy, which is a gift, and he made people stronger with his support and counsel. He was generous and would put himself up for auction at charity events. “An hour’s coaching at Lord’s with Shane Warne for ten people” would sell for shedloads. He’d meet the buyers, charm them utterly, and do double the time with the group they sent along – often longer if they were enthusiastic kids. He had friends in high places and friends from the sticks. He learnt to play tennis on the court in Bob Hawke’s backyard and, years later, fired up the pizza oven for Chris Martin and Ed Sheeran to have chill nights in his own backyard;
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WALL OF FAME 10 greats from the history of gambling
SPINNER
By Mark Nicholas
Michael Parkinson and Tim Rice took him out for lunch at the Ivy; Coldplay called him on stage to sing with them during a sell-out concert in Melbourne. At Sunningdale Golf Club one day, Sean Connery heard Warnie was putting out on the 17th green and stayed behind an extra 15 minutes just to meet him. He hung out with Dannii Minogue and Jemima Khan and became engaged to Elizabeth Hurley. On Twitter, Mick Jagger mourned his passing. He completely adored his parents, Keith and Brigitte, was a loyal brother and friend to Jason, and doted on his three children. Wonderful husband he may not have been, wonderful father he was. The Warnes are a fine family. It hurts deeply to think of their pain. Frankly, he has left a lot of folks in pain. He gave so much and had so much more to give. Bloody hell, how we will miss him. So will the tables. He played high-level
poker, risked high-level stakes at the roulette wheel, and liked nothing more than a punchy unit or two on the golf course. Each year, his great joy was an invitation to the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland, and last October he had a run of birdies that saw him fall
‘What’s the key to being a good leg-spinner, Warnie?’ was the question. ‘A lot of love,’ came the answer. only a shot short of winning the amateur event with his professional partner Ryan Fox. I promise that had he done so, he would have regarded it as a pinnacle alongside the Ashes. He had become a terrific commentator, listening and learning from others and
applying his remarkable cricketing intelligence to the stories he was telling. He liked cricket kept simple; he loved the game to fizz and to sparkle, and he believed implicitly that attack was the ultimate answer to defence. He made cricket cool and those around him happy. It seems barely believable that the Warne smile is no more. By 52 years of age, he’d had a hell of a run, living five, maybe ten lives or more. Every day, in every place, the magic appeared in one form or another and you just had to be lucky enough to be there and have it rub off on you. It’s gone now, but better to have loved and lost than not to have known him at all. There will never be another. Mostly, he was a man of popular culture, but his take on it was rooted in the tradition and memories of the past. No one had better manners nor offered more polite →