Gideon Haigh
Shane Warne probably spent more of his life in hotels than at home. They were the backdrop for many of the greatest dramas of his career: being offered tainted cash; being pinged for failing a drug test; being dropped. Finally, of course, Warne was to die in a hotel suite. But these events were to do with the drama that was his unfailing companion. About Warne, hotels were neutral, familiar, routine. They were places of acute normality, as in this candid image by my friend Mark Ray from the 2001 Ashes series.
Warne is framed by the walls of a hotel corridor in Birmingham. He has found a spot of light midst the anonymous function and encircling gloom. Or who knows? Maybe he’s his own charisma-charged light source. He is casually attired in a pair of cricket pants, torso and feet unselfconsciously bare. He is a little thick round the middle, but you can’t miss the natural strength of the upper body, the broad shoulders and the taut neck that made possible 100,000 deliveries in big cricket.
Why is Warne in the corridor? As Mark recalls, wife Simone was settling the children for bed - the separation of the Warnes’ sporting and domestic involvements, then, was perpetuated on the road. But it’s something, isn’t it? The camera loved Warne. There was hardly a moment in his adult life a photographer was not close by. He had for the occasion a perfect, symmetrical, artificially brightened smile, teeth so white there were almost a cold blue. In this instant, however, he is communing with a new pair of spikes, straight from the box. These boots are made for bowling, and that’s just what they’ll do…..
There is something earthy and candid about it all: perhaps the greatest bowler of our era in a state so relaxed, in a pose so mundane. Remember the fuss in October 2022 when cleaners posted video footage of the interior of Virat Kohli’s room, shoes lined up, tables laid out, benches well-stocked with unguents and pottions. ‘I understand that fans get very happy and excited seeing their favourite players and get excited to meet them and I've always appreciated that,’ Kohli wrote to his 221 million followers on Instagram. ‘But this video here is appalling and it's made me feel very paranoid about my privacy. If I cannot have privacy in my own hotel room, then where can I really expect any personal space at all??’ In contrast, as in so much of his career, Warne effectively invites us in, includes us, even identifies with us: he is every cricketer who ever addressed fresh gear, sap rising at prospective wickets and runs. All that’s missing are the phone and the smokes, and my guess is that they’re on the other side of him, just out of view. Anyone could walk along at any moment. And Mark Ray did.
The number of famous people who met their end in hotels is perhaps unsurprising. A fate shared with Jimmi Hendrix, Margaret Thatcher, Peter Roebuck, and Oscar Wilde. I wonder which of those Mr Warne shared most in common. Do we accept that Warne was “booted” from his hotel room to permit his children to get to sleep, or did he absent himself? He appears so absorbed in the contemplation of his new footwear. There is an exclusivity of focus not inconsistent with his apparent ability to block out the chaos of his domestic dramas once he stepped onto the outfield.
I had a mark ray book as a child, ‘cricket masala.’ It had the most wonderfully humane photos from the Qayyum inquiry and Australia’s ‘98 tour of Pakistan.