'Never forget': Michael Clarke lifts lid on incredible Shane Warne act
Michael Clarke has spoken of his devastation following the death of great mate Shane Warne, revealing the incredible extent of Warnie's loyalty with a touching anecdote.
Warne died on Saturday of a suspected heart attack at age 52, with friends finding him unresponsive in his villa in Koh Samui.
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“I think the hardest thing to comprehend is how quickly it’s happened,” Clarke said on the Big Sports Breakfast on Monday morning.
“He was reasonably fit, Warnie, he went through stages where he’d put a bit of weight on, lose a bit of weight but generally for 52 years of age he was in pretty good nick.”
As tributes and stories continue to flood in from around the world, close friend and former teammate Clarke has revealed how Warne travelled 17,000km to be at his wedding with ex-wife Kyly when he didn't even know it was happening.
Clarke said Warne was in the UK working ahead of his secret wedding with Kyly in 2012.
However the cricket legend dropped everything to be at the event with then-fiancee Liz Hurley, even though they were under the impression that it was only to celebrate Clarke's birthday.
“I’m very lucky to have some wonderful people in my life - family and friends - but Warnie was as loyal as anyone,” Clarke said.
“I’ll never forget, my wedding .... we didn’t tell anybody because of the media .. my ex-wife Kyly, we only invited 30 of our closest family and friends and she told everyone it was my birthday.
“Warnie was in London engaged at the time to Elizabeth Hurley and was working over there. I said to Kyly at the time ‘for some people, you can’t tell them it’s my birthday. They’re not going to come.'
"Even if you told Warnie it was my wedding, still I don’t expect him to come, he’s over there working. He can’t get time off work, he’s just got engaged, he’s not going to come.
“Mate, he came. Him and Elizabeth get on a plane, thinking it’s my birthday party, and he still came.
“That to me just sums up what he was like to his closest friends. It was only a small group - (he had) a million acquaintances - but only a handful of close friends and he would give anything to them, the shirt off his back. He was that loyal and I loved that most about him.”
Shane Warne's incredible gesture for grieving Peter Ford
A similar anecdote has also emerged from entertainment reporter Peter Ford, who said Warne would regularly text him despite the pair never meeting.
Ford said he and Warne shared “thousands” of messages, including their final exchange in which Warne sent condolences after the death of Ford's dog.
“Friday afternoon I got one (text message)," Ford told Ben Fordham on 2GB on Monday morning.
"He contacted me, he’d read a tweet that I’d done about my dog dying and he contacted me and said, ‘How are you going?’”
“That’s why it became all the more impossible to believe when I got that news in the middle of the night/early hours of Saturday morning.”
Warne's body was moved for an autopsy in the main state hospital in Surat Thani province on Sunday.
He had been staying in a private villa with three friends, one of whom performed CPR after finding him unresponsive when he did not show up for dinner.
He was taken by ambulance to Thai International Hospital and later his body was transferred to Koh Samui Hospital. His death is not being treated as suspicious.
Yuttana Sirisombat, superintendent at the Bo Phut police station, told reporters Warne had been suffering chest pains before arriving in Thailand.
He also had asthma and had seen a doctor about his heart.
with AAP
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