CRICKET legend Shane Warne has tragically died suddenly at the age of 52 after a suspected heart attack.

Warne’s management released a brief statement in the early hours of Saturday (AEDT), that he passed away in Thailand of a suspected heart attack.

"Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived,” the statement reads.

"The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course."

His death came just hours after tweeting his "sadness" at the death of cricket legend Rod Marsh who suffered a heart attack aged 74.

He said: "Sad to hear the news that Rod Marsh has passed. He was a legend of our great game & an inspiration to so many young boys &  girls.

"Rod cared deeply about cricket & gave so much especially to Australia & England players.

"Sending lots & lots of love to Ros & the family. RIP mate."

Shane captained the Australia national team in One Day Internationals and was widely considered one of the greatest bowlers in cricket history.

As well as playing internationally, Warne played domestic cricket for his home state of Victoria and English domestic cricket for Hampshire.

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He was captain of Hampshire for 3 seasons from 2005 to 2007 and played his first test match in 1992 and took over 1,000 international wickets.

Perhaps the most-viewed cricket clip of all time, Shane Warne’s Ball of the Century at Old Trafford in 1993 was the start of the leg-spinner’s legend.

His very first delivery in Ashes cricket swerved in the air, landed outside Mike Gatting’s leg stump and turned so savagely that it clipped the top of off stump.

Australia won the match and clinched the Ashes. Gatting’s bemused look as he trudged off was a picture.

On December 21, 2006, Warned announced his retirement following the fifth Ashes Test match at the SCG.

He said it was his intention to "go out on top" and added that he might have retired after the 2005 Ashes series if Australia had won.

In February 2003, he was handed a 12-month ban from cricket after taking a diuretic.

At the time, he accused the Australian Cricket Board's drug tribunal of bowing to "anti-doping hysteria" following the year-long suspension for using a prohibited substance as a masking agent.

He said his mother Brigitte gave him the Moduretic before he went in front of the cameras to announce his retirement from one-day international cricket after the World Cup.

? Follow our Shane Warne blog for live updates on his death

It comes as…

• Piers Morgan has led tributes to Shane Warne, describing him as a "genius cricketer, supreme entertainer and loyal friend"
• Gary Lineker described Warne as the "greatest spin bowler of all time" following the shock news
• In his haunting final tweet, Warne paid tribute to fellow cricketing legend Rod Marsh, who also died of a heart attack

FAMILY

Devastated Shane revealed he was left alone in his hotel room and cried himself to sleep after his ex-wife Simone Callahan broke up with him in 2005.

He was married to Simone for 10 years and the pair had three kids: Brooke, 24; Jackson, 22; and Summer, 20.

The blonde star, whose lovers include former fiancée Liz Hurley, has admitted he turned to booze during tearful nights alone.

Simone told how her “life was turned on its head” when she arrived in England to start a new life with Shane just as the Ashes series was about to begin.

But when newspaper stories revealed Shane had been pursuing other women behind her back, including student Laura Sayers and mum-of-three Kerrie Collimore, Simone headed home to Australia with their three children.

In a new documentary released just two months ago titled simply Shane, the former bad boy of cricket, admits: “I think that was the lowest.

"The impact on my children, they wouldn’t get to see me and that was my fault.

“I would go back and raid the minibar. I was on my own on the hotel room floor, crying ‘you d***head'.”

It marked the end of Shane's 10-year marriage to Simone, which had weathered cheating allegations in the past.

Simone stuck by him when it emerged he'd pestered a British nurse with obscene messages, which cost him the vice-captaincy of his nation’s cricket team in 2000.

He later dated Hurley and moved into her Brighton mansion, with the couple announcing their engagement in 2011.

After they split in 2013 – Shane said he had to "live with" what he did to his family "for the rest of my life".

In 2016, he was said to be seeing American student Kathryn Long.

Most recently, he was reportedly dating model Emily Sears.

He started dating the 37-year-old in March 2017 and confirmed the relationship in June of that year.

'GUTTING NEWS'

Tributes have poured in for the cricketing legend, including from Piers Morgan.

"Absolutely devastated to hear that Shane Warne has died from a heart attack aged just 52," he tweeted.

"He was a genius cricketer, a  supreme entertainer, a fantastic bloke and a great loyal friend for many years.

"Just gutting news. RIP Warnie, I loved every minute in your company."

Gary Lineker tweeted: "Terribly saddened and shocked to hear the news that Shane Warne has died.

"The greatest spin bowler of all time. Can't quite believe it. RIP Shane."

England cricketing hero Monty Panesar told TalkRadio: "This is absolutely devastating, I'm sure the cricketing community will be completely shocked."

He said Warne was one of the "legends of the game" – "on and off the field, what he did for cricket was unbelievable."

Monty went on: "It's absolutely shocking. I can't believe I'm even sort of talking to you about this."

In September, Warne joked he tried smoking 100 cigarettes a day to cure Covid.

The Aussie, 52, tested positive over the summer, forcing him to isolate and miss coaching The Hundred team London Spirit.

Double-jabbed Warne, a Sky TV cricket pundit who took 708 Test wickets, said: “I’m unfortunately not playing enough golf because I’ve got Covid.

“Don’t take this as any sort of gospel, and this is actually a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I thought if I smoked 100 cigarettes a day I could kill Covid.

“It didn’t really work and I ended up on a ventilator, so it wasn’t ideal.

“I had to have the ten days’ isolation — but I’m up and about now.”

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