Shane Warne: Daughter of cricket legend calls TV miniseries into his life ‘beyond disrespectful’
At a press conference on Wednesday, Australia’s Channel 9 confirmed plans for a two-part miniseries called “Warnie” which will document the spinner’s life.
But Brooke Warne, Warne’s eldest daughter, has called the series insensitive.
“Do any of you have any respect for Dad? Or his family?” she wrote on an Instagram story. “Who did so much for Channel Nine and now you want to dramatize his life and our families [sic] life 6 months after he passed away? You are beyond disrespectful.”
In June, Warne’s long-time manager James Erskine criticized plans for the biopic, calling it a “disgrace.”
“I will be writing to Peter Costello because he is their chairman and saying, please explain. Why would Nine even go there? It’s a disgrace and I will certainly be making my voice heard.”
Channel Nine sent a statement to CNN saying: “Our Warnie mini-series we know will be a celebration of the life of an extraordinary Australian — a man who lived life large and loved passionately. We have enormous respect for Shane and all his achievements, and our hope is all Australians including Warnie’s family will feel the program honours his legacy and life.”
Warne is one of cricket’s greatest players, reinventing the art of leg spin bowling and dominating for Australia for around 15 years.
He had 708 Test wickets to his name — the most for an Australian, and the second-most of all time behind only Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka.
He was named the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World on three separate occasions, and one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the 20th century. As a legacy, Warne’s is unrivaled — the sport’s greatest ever leg-spinner.
Perhaps his greatest moment came in the 1993 Ashes series against England when he delivered ‘the ball of the century’ to completely bamboozle Mike Gatting. The video of the delivery was shared extensively on social media as news of his death spread.
