David Warner - just a suburban boy
Dean Tuckwell | January 05, 2024
Terrific article Peter - Warner's Inconvenient Truth . Dave (sorry but I cannot refer to him as Davey) Warner is indeed an enigmatic character and one who I’m sure is far more complex than he appears.
He does so many things right on a cricket field. Hands down he is the best runner between wickets I have ever seen. He always runs hard and looks to put the fielder under pressure, never turning blind (unlike Dean Jones) and always holds his bat in the correct hand. This coupled with his aggressive stroke play means that things can get away from the bowling side very quickly indeed.
I don’t think Warner possesses the natural fielding talent of a Ricky Ponting or Andrew Symonds but is one of the worlds best fielders through sheer will. I place Marnus Labuschagne in the same boat in that their effort in the field, coupled with great match awareness changes the course of games, and indeed tournaments as we have recently seen. Their never-say-die ground fielding not only saved countless runs but contributed to key wickets.
Whilst he isn’t the first aggressive opening batsman to succeed in test cricket he is in the very top echelon of such players with the likes of Greenidge, Sehwag & Hayden. Some of his achievements in test cricket are extraordinary - a triple hundred, centuries in each innings at a run a ball and a hundred in the first session are Trumper-esque but it remains to be seen if they will be as revered as Vic’s achievements in the years to come. His modest success abroad (& facing Broad) will count against him being considered with the all-time greatest players in the history of the game but it does not detract from his accomplishments in this country. He has been lucky that his lean final couple of years has been in this era rather than earlier periods of heavy run scoring in the Sheffield Shield but during this lean time he has notched 160 & a double hundred - there have been plenty of well performed test players who have never done either.
Obviously he has also been guilty of many cringeworthy moments throughout his career. I have found his behaviour abhorrent on occasions but suspect that during earlier misguided periods he was encouraged and perhaps even given the role of being the provocateur in the thought that such embarrassing behaviour gave the Australian team an edge. Being a team player he readily obliged but it was a role that he seemed happy to play. I was as disgusted by the sandpaper incident as much as anyone but I thought the punishment was just - certainly far harsher than any other country would have imposed on star players and I am happy that they are selected again after serving their suspensions.
Life is rarely black and white and there are few saints and Dave Warner is clearly no saint but he has reformed and Australian cricket is far richer for his career even if it contains lots of grey.
