Warner

By Scott MacLean

It’s hard to think of a more polarising cricketer of recent times than David Andrew Warner.

On one hand, there’s the technically gifted batsman. A career Test line of 8786 runs @ an average of 44.60, 22 100s and 37 50s, and a best of 335* across 112 matches and 208 innings is proof of that. Add in his ODI (6932 runs @ 45.30 in 161 matches at a rate of 97.26 with 26 100s and a best of 179) and T20I (2894 @ 32.88 in 99 outings at a strike rate of 141.30) numbers, and we’re talking about one of the best across the game’s three formats, and along with Matthew Hayden, Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, and Sanath Jayasuriya (and for those with longer memories Gordon Greenidge and before that Roy Fredericks) one of the most destructive Test opening batsmen in the history of the game.

His maiden hundred was arguably one of his best innings, carrying his bat in the fourth innings at Hobart in 2012 when he came periously close to denying us that famous Doug Bracewell-inspired victory, and there was a period on the mid-2010s where he was seemingly scoring centuries for fun – especially against New Zealand – and is one of just three players to score centuries in both innings of a Test three times alongside Sunil Gavaskar and Ricky Ponting. He’s been awarded Australia’s Allan Border Medal three times, was the Player of the Tournament at the 2021 T20 World Cup, and named in Test and ODI Teams of the Year and Teams of the Decade.

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On the other hand, there’s well, almost everything else. It seems clear in hindsight that he set himself out to be the snarling, unpleasant, pitbull of the Australian side, and not just on the field. There were the sledges that went too far, the 2013 altercation with Joe Root in a Birmingham night club that earned him banishment from the rest of that years Champions Trophy, and more that led to Martin Crowe describing him as “the most juvenile cricketer I have seen on a cricket field”. He also told Rohit Sharma to “speak English” during one of his many on-field altercations.  It was as if no one ever said ‘No’ or ‘Dave, you can’t do that’ to him, or if they did it was quickly forgotten by all involved, and like most bullies he seems rather thin-skinned to it coming back at him.

All that, and the win-at-all-costs mentality, led to its ultimate and perhaps inevitable nadir in South Africa in 2018. There was the altercation with Proteas wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock in the First Test, before the Sandpapergate scandal in the Third in Cape Town. Determined to be the architect of the ball-tampering plan, he was sent home and banned from international and domestic cricket for 12 months and permanently from leadership positions within the side. Yet, and despite not really taking ownership and responsibility for what took place he would return as would Steve Smith, but Cameron Bancroft – the junior player Warner “instructed” (if we’re being charitable, bullied would seem a better assessment) to do the actual tampering hasn’t featured for Australia since.

His immediate return at the 2019 World Cup paid dividends, and he would notch that 335* in the day/night Test against Pakistan in Adelaide – a score one run more than Don Bradman and Mark Taylor on the all-time Australian list behind Hayden. But in between it was clear he was no longer the force he had been, with a poor Ashes series and later struggles in India and Pakistan, and another lean run last Australian summer was punctuated only by a double-century at the MCG.

Perhaps sensing the end was near, Warner openly suggested the traditional New Years Test at home in Sydney would be his last and in doing so threw down the gauntlet to the selectors to keep picking him despite his waning powers or face the wrath of the Aussie cricket public. He got his wish and signed off with a vintage 57 on a typically deteriorating SCG pitch, but also complete with a horribly nauseating lovefest from Fox cricket and most of its commentary team (take a bow Ian Smith for resisting the madness) and overshadowing its usual place as the primary fundraiser for the Jane McGrath Foundation, and without any of his indiscretions getting any sort of mention. Oh, and add that bizarre story about the whereabouts of his beloved baggy green cap.

By most accounts, away from cricket Warner is a reasonable bloke and devoted to his family; his wife and media personality and former champion surf ironwoman Candace and their three daughters. But it’s hard to get away from all the parts of his career and his place in the long lineage of Australian cricketers that fits the description of “Terrific cricketer, loathsome person”.

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