by Garfield Robinson
Occasionally, something new comes along that you don’t quite get. You don’t get it because it is different. You don’t quite understand it or quite know what to make of it so you view it with some amount of distrust, maybe even some disdain. Things that defy the norm, that are not in line with your view of the ordered world often force you to revise long-held opinions of how things are supposed to function.
I have to admit that when I first saw David Warner in whites, opening the innings for his country, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I had witnessed the diminutive batsman in coloured clothing before and so I was aware he could hit the ball long and often. But Test cricket was a different matter altogether. Such an approach would not do.
Additionally, there was no way a batsman who had not played a single first-class game before being flung into t20 could possibly make the transition to serious cricket in so short a time. By what means would he develop the necessary technique? How would he cultivate the required patience?
Still, if the good selectors of the Australian Test team wanted to take that chance it was their problem. His big hitting, purely by happenstance, would occasionally get his side off to a flyer; much more frequently, however, the opposition would be guaranteed a cheap early wicket.
That would only be for the short time such a foolhardy experiment would last because it wouldn’t be long before the Australians came to their senses.
Australia toured the Caribbean in 2011-12 and upon witnessing a somewhat untidy innings by Warner, a former great player turned highly insightful analyst – a cricketing oracle as far as I’m concerned – ventured that he didn’t think he was witnessing a Test match opener.
Those sentiments reinforced an opinion I then held even more firmly, though Warner had already slammed two Test centuries against New Zealand and India and had a Test average of over 50. His success just couldn’t last. His game was not tight enough. The lines he drew with his blade were just too crooked.
Warner was not the first opener to play in such a belligerent manner. Sunil Gavaskar’s one-time opening partner Kris Srikkanth batted with the same kind of mindset, though with less success. Also, to a somewhat lesser degree, there were Matthew Hayden and Christopher Gayle; and, of course, there was the recently retired Virender Sehwag.
It was Sehwag, according to Warner, who planted the seed in his mind that he could become a Test batsman after seeing him only in the game’s briefest form. For that, cricket owes the former Indian opener a debt of gratitude. He dared, perhaps because he wielded his blade in like manner, to see what many others could not. And those who first regarded Warner of something of an imposter, as far as Tests were concerned, were compelled to take a second look when he began piling up century after breathtaking century.
During the Australian summer of 2013-14 England travelled to fight the old enemy for the Ashes, and after a brief period of troubles off the field and a relatively lean period on it, Warner embarked on a prolonged festival of run-scoring colossal in its effectiveness and startling in its consistency.
England began the second leg of the double-barreled Ashes series on a high brought about by their triumph over the hosts a few months prior. Unexpectedly, they plunged headfirst into the fire and brimstone that was the searing pace and relentlessness of Mitchell Johnson.
But if Johnson flung them back down to earth then Warner was the one who ground them into the dust. If Johnson’s withering pace brought about their demise then it was Warner who danced on their graves with the strength and splendour of his strokeplay. The quantity of runs he gathered was one thing, the manner in which he scored them quite another. Often, if England felt they had a sniff as he strode to the crease in the company of Chris Rogers, they knew that all hope had vanished by the time he departed.
Next, it was the turn of the South Africans to feel the full power of the Australian opener’s bat. Warner thumped three hundreds in the three-Test series, including two in the deciding last Test in Cape Town, and, if anything, was even better than he was against England. If Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander could not stem his flow of runs then it was hard to see what combination of bowlers could.
Since then, Pakistan and India have had to contend with the bulk and boldness of the openers run-scoring. The West Indies were fortunate to escape unscathed when Australia played two Tests there in June. And though Warner racked up five half-centuries during this year’s Ashes contest in England, he did not do the damage that the hosts would have feared.
If the first Test of the current Trans-Tasman Trophy series in Australia is anything to go by then the Kiwis are in for a torrid time. Joining Sunil Gavaskar and countryman Ricky Ponting, Warner, 163 and 116 at Brisbane, became the third player to slam centuries in both innings of a Test for the third time. Ponting, arguably Australia’s greatest batsman since Bradman, accomplished the feat in his 102nd Test. This last game was Warner’s 44th.
What most observers found slightly surprising was the restraint that Warner showed, especially in the first innings. Australia’s new vice-captain exhibited the kind of maturity one would expect from the side’s most experienced Test batsman. Undoubtedly, Warner would have been aware that his team’s batting unit, save for captain Steve Smith, was largely untried, and that might have spurred him on to placing a higher value on his wicket than he would have were Australia’s batting more experienced.
But Warner didn’t rein himself in too tightly or for too long. Before long all the thrilling strokes were unsheathed and the Warner we all knew and appreciated was in evidence. His first innings 163 was made from 239 deliveries. In the second innings his 116 came at slightly quicker than a run-a-ball. Searching for rapid runs he and the equally forthright Joe Burns had an opening stand of 237 in just about 38 overs.
No longer the imposter viewed with suspicion by purists, Warner is now a highly respected player. He may not be the best Test batsman in the world. I would argue, however, that he’s certainly the most effective.
There is no one with anything like his mindset and his ability to gather big scores at such rapid rates.
There is no current batsman so capable of pushing opponents so quickly on the back-foot – none with the temerity to so often launch full-throated assaults on the opposition.
With Sehwag no longer around, Warner is now one-of-a-kind.
Long may his methods last.
