Warner's Inconvenient Truth

Peter Langston | January 02, 2024

“The only difference between being uninformed and misinformed is that one is your choice and the other is theirs.”

Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience

Like all journeymen cricketers, the media space splashed about David Warner - whether it be main stream print or electronic media or the more insidious social media platforms - has only increased as his last appearance in Test matches has approached.

His runs, his media gaffs, his outspoken wife, the abhorrence of his role in the "sandpaper gate" crisis of faith ... they have all been blasted at anyone who would listen and even those who chose to turn away. The majority of it is popularist bullshit, written not to express an opinion but to mimic pub talk and please potential consumers of the modern world version of pulp fiction. Many who write, do so for approval and what better way than to avoid your own opinion - if indeed you are capable of such - and simply pile the steaming stuff on a soon to be extinct carcass.

Warner is an enigma. Capable of the most outstanding deeds on the cricket field when in manic mode and yet, the most despicable when he goes past that boundary of respectability we all like to believe we'll never cross. I have been told by those who played against him in grade cricket before he rose to celebrity, that he has been forever thus. You can theorise all your like as to why but does it really matter? Its easy to say he's a flawed genius or that his gifts of fast reflexes and accurate filters which allow him to decimate a bowling attack don't extend to a control over his mouth. He has always been and will always be, a lightning rod for that bipolar social state we live in of black and white, ford or holden, right or wrong - sides we chose depending on which of our sensibilities have been offended and how well we can impress people with our outrage. Like Ricky Gervais, you will either like or loathe Warner.

Pitted against his outstanding success with the bat in all formats of the game, his feisty competitiveness from which Australian teams have fuelled much of their success in the past decade and his outstanding fielding are the blemishes which fester after every Broad encounter or even any minor gesture to individuals in media centres on grounds throughout the world. The incident in South Africa is the most oft-quoted but there were other calamitous moments. My personal distaste for his comments about Jonathan Trott in the midst of that player's rapid decline at the hands of depression rate even higher in my database of Warner disapproval.

The question that needs to be posed is, why is Shane Warne, with all his personal discrepancies and lies and anti-social behaviours been at worst considered a larrikan and now, in death, a deity and yet Warner remains firmly fixed in the cross hairs for public desecration? In reality, based on the importance of their contribution, the two as people are only consonants apart.

I will be accused of making excuses here but as one who has been as critical just as much as I have praised Warner, I will venture forward, if only for my own understanding of his behaviour. His greatest asset is the unparalleled passion he brings to his personal table. It oozes from his every move, every statement, every stroke of bat or keypad. Alone, passion can only be praised. Warner's shortfall is in the intellectual activity of filtering his passion. He at times simply finds it impossible to resist impulses. Throughout his career, he has no doubt be counselled and trained in how he presents himself in the face of an invasive and provocative media and has engaged readily, as have most of us, in social media. The fact remains, like the mountain of runs he has scored and the huge bag of outstanding catches, the sheer quantity of his performance doesn't alleviate the gaffs that his lack of filtering and impulsiveness creates. The media knows this. They prey on his ilk, creating stories by inciting his riots. For social media, of course, this is the raison d'etre.

A psychologist might comfortably find a reason (not an excuse) for this behaviour in a number of conditions which inflict so many of us. My experience with bipolar gave me an earlier insight but an even greater exposure during my twenty years as a teacher and subsequently with people close to me who suffer the pitfalls of it, has led me to believe that Warner may well be a victim of ADHD. This doesn't relieve him of accountability for his actions but if you understood the demons which drive the physical and mental impulsivity, his lack of control at times could at least be understood as being not at all the sign of a bad person. If indeed ADHD has been overheating his pre-frontal cortex, his successes are quite remarkable.

Of those, the most recent achievement of responding with dignity and complete control under very personal attacks from former team mates, a spark which became a media wildfire, was arguably the highlight of his career. True, Warner had responded with battle swords drawn to Mitchell Johnson some time ago but notably, in private, after the ghost-written comments savaged his wife publicly. Two weeks before his last Test series started, Johnson and then Cowan, savaged the same Warner who in the past would have bitten down hard on their bait and torn strips in retaliation.

He didn't. He ignored opportunities for vengeance, speaking to their personal attacks only once and then, intoning their right to an opinion. Instead, the only sword he drew was that big bat, performing his assigned role for Australia as he has so often, with distinction and his own unique, team-defining style. Two weeks in, he deserved to underline his silencing of his detractors with his post-century signal to the media box in Perth.

For those reading whose hackles are now well and truly up, let me conclude with a story you won't have heard. It will likely not change your mind but it needs to be told because not everything we have concluded about David Warner has been fair.

Twelve months ago, my nephew was diagnosed with a significant cancer in his lower leg and knee. Osteosarcoma eats bone tissue and make no mistake, this was a life-threatening and life-altering event. He was 16. What followed was a horrendous period of painful treatment, a series on invasive operations, long nights in hospital unable to sleep for pain and fear, loss of time away from study for the HSC and a dislocation from all that life had previously blessed him with. A promising cricketer, straight A student, until then his life was full of opportunities.

He was lucky. He is engulfed in the love of family members. His cricket club, Randwick-Petersham, rallied club mates, raised much needed funds and provided the support for one of its "family" that has been such a hallmark of the Randy-Pete's under Mike Whitney's twenty three years of presidency. His school principal and the likes of CricConnect's Paul Ryan, used their contacts to let the sporting world know of his predicament. Soon video messages and texts were flooding into to my nephew's phone from the best of cricket and the NRL - Pat Cummins and Daly Cheery Evans notably among them. When you watch the video messages, you quickly realise most of these blokes were working from a supplied script but it didn't matter. They took the time and made the effort and a young man felt he wasn't alone after all.

Then there was Warner. Sans script, he made a personal visit to the hospital and spent an hour talking with my nephew about resilience and hope. Then, the day after returning from India with injury, he was there at the hospital again, unannounced and like before, with no media liaison, no manager and no cameras: just David Warner and a few gifts, the most important of which was his time. Through all of this contact, Warner urged media silence. He said to my sister in law, "if you involve the media, they'll make it about me and this is about your son". There were other things he did to make this personal and meaningful which I won't divulge here. I am already betraying a selfless act but with his playing days ending, perhaps it becomes more important to ask for his forgiveness than his permission. Here was David Warner's passion, worn on his sleave, for a young bloke who won't now have the chance to explore the dreams Warner had for himself and was able to realised, for whilst my nephew has recovered - the last scans show the cancer is gone - he will never play cricket again. The replacement knee won't take the strain.

Perhaps, instead of judging Warner based on limited information which will always glory in the negative, it might be enough to acknowledge his failures and his successes with a level of appreciation that comes with understanding of just of difficult it has been for him. Yes, he has all the financial benefits of his huge talent and celebrity and yes, we all felt dirtied by his lead role in ball tampering and how that reflected upon our sense of personal pride in our mantra of fairplay and sportsmanship which we trot out like some badge of honour ... but does our jealousy and distaste extend to a forever disclaimer that allows us to continue to attack him well after he has served his punishment, returned and been a pace-setter in his own and Australia's redemption?

"To err is human, to forgive, divine" said Alexander Pope in his poem, An Essay on Criticism.

You may not join me but I choose to exercise forgiveness and move on. Its a powerful and character defining action and is never about whether the person who has given offence deserves it. You never deserve forgiveness. The fact David Warner has done enough to be forgiven is not up for never ending debate, nor is it the point. That's a path for those who can argue only in black and white. All the colours of the rainbow await those who can forgive.