- Joined
- Oct 2, 2004
- Runs
- 217,506
Frightening what he has done against us!
==
As Australia's Test cricketers landed in Islamabad last weekend to a welcome of glee and gratitude, there was one figure on the team bus travelling amid head-of-state-style security who Pakistan players and fans might quietly wish had not made the historic trip.
Like a vast majority of his squad mates, David Warner was setting foot in Pakistan for the first time in his 13-year international career, but his reputation is known and feared across the Islamic republic.
That's because Warner's Test record against Pakistan is beyond remarkable.
No other opener has scored more than the five centuries the left-hander has plundered in his seven contests with Australia's next Test opponent, and he is the only player with more than five innings at the elite level to average 100 or more (108.40) against Pakistan.
And even acknowledging the obvious caveat his past two campaigns have been fought on familiar turf in Australia, the 35-year-old's past five innings have yielded scores of 144, 113, 55, 154 and 335no.
While a Test opener averaging 200 might seem the stuff of fantasy (or selective statistics), it's not just the sheer volume of runs Warner has piled on against powerless Pakistan bowlers but also the mode in which he's collected them that makes him such a feared adversary.
Warner's scoring rate in Asia (including the UAE) of almost 67 per 100 balls faced is the fastest by any Australia Test opener in those markedly unfamiliar conditions, the next-best being fellow left-hander Matthew Hayden's 59.63.
The 113 Warner peeled off early in that string of recent scoring sprees against Pakistan came on a memorable first day of the 2017 new year's Test at the SCG where he plundered an extraordinary century in the game's first session.
And he is one of only two opening batters in Test cricket's annals (minimum two innings) to average triple digits against Pakistan's bowlers, with the other being his expected first-wicket partner for the upcoming series, Usman Khawaja (102.67).
But the likelihood Australia will enter their first offshore Test assignment in almost three years with an opening pair both aged 35 only serves to underscore the quandary facing national selectors, their new captain and yet-to-be appointed coach as they ponder the team's evolution.
Noting Australia's first-class ranks are currently flush with middle-order batting options, quality allrounders, auxiliary wicketkeeper-batters and all manner of pace and spin bowling back-ups awaiting their opportunity, Warner surely looms as the most difficult incumbent member to eventually replace.
That's certainly the view of Chris Rogers, currently coach of Victoria and Warner's Test opening partner in 22 Tests between 2013 and 2015, when Rogers called time on his international career aged 37.
"I think so," Rogers told cricket.com.au when asked if his ex-teammates' shoes would prove the most difficult for any new member to fill as Australia undergoes transition in the Cummins era.
"That's because you have a player who is an X-factor but has consistency in his game as well, and those two don't generally go hand-in-hand.
"I know he hasn't performed as well recently as he has at other times in his career, but equally he brings a presence to the side.
"Opposition know that if they don't get it right to him, the game could be gone in an hour or a session. He's that kind of player.
"A lot of other players you can be a bit more patient with and try and wear them down, but with Davey he has that ability as an opening batter to put pressure back on the bowling side and that's not all that common."
Warner has previously indicated he might need to consider cutting back on his international commitments to limited-overs cricket – most likely T20 internationals – because of the increasingly demanding playing schedule, but he currently remains an all-formats Australia player.
But despite recording the slowest scoring rate (50.74) of any of his Test series in Australia during the recent Vodafone Ashes, Warner claimed during the summer he was driven by the prospect of winning a Test series in India, with that opportunity expected to be scheduled in early 2023.
He also suggested he "might think about going back" to England for the next Ashes battle later that year by which stage he would be pushing 37 years of age.
Australia's current interim men's team coach Andrew McDonald observed prior to the team's departure for Pakistan last week that Warner's reduced return against England was directly attributable to bowler-friendly conditions in which most top-order batters struggled.
McDonald also backed Australia's second-most prolific Test opener (with 7545 runs at the top of the order) behind Hayden (8625) to not only prosper but continue putting pressure back on to opposition bowlers in the manner he's done throughout his career to date.
"There's always speculation about players when they're in their mid-30s as to whether they can or can't do it still," McDonald said.
"It was difficult for him this Ashes no doubt – two pink-ball games plus some grass on wickets made it difficult for the opening batters.
"In Melbourne (third Ashes Test) we saw what he can do. That was a difficult wicket and I think he was almost a run-a-ball 38.
"We saw the speculation (about his position) leading into the (T20) World Cup, but he's a world-class performer and going to Pakistan he'll be ready, his preparation will be spot on and he'll sum up the conditions when that first ball is bowled."
However, as a devoted father to his three young daughters (with wife Candice), Warner has spoken often about the difficulty he finds in leaving his family for lengthy overseas commitments, which only adds to the surety his playing days are dwindling.
Rogers and Hayden are the only two regular Australia openers in the post-war era to have played on at Test level after turning 37 and Warren Bardsley (who played his last Test in 1926 aged 43) is the most recent to don the Baggy Green Cap and face the new ball in his 40s.
Australia's selectors were blessed with the emergence of Warner – via the T20 format, in which he represented Australia before playing a first-class game – as an aggressive, game-changing opener in Hayden's mould barely two years after the indomitable Queenslander's exit.
As Rogers is acutely aware, the value of a batter launching at a rival team's new-ball bowlers delivers benefits far in excess of those obvious on the scoreboard.
"If you have fielders who are suddenly out of the slips and being put into the (in-field) ring and used as sweepers, the way the momentum shifts so quickly can be really hard to pull back," Rogers said of the sorts of advantages that flow from belligerent batters like Warner.
"And then it also starts to benefit the batter down the other end, because there's less pressure on him as well.
"From my point of view, when I batted with him he was the kind of guy the opposition was always focused on so you could go a little bit under the radar.
"You could kind of ride the wave that he was setting.
"It's going to be tough to find a replacement.
"Opening the batting is very hard, so finding another quality opener is going to be hard enough but trying to find someone who gives the side the qualities that Davey has is going to be extra hard."
The emerging player who seemed most likely to take up the role of free-scoring opener (albeit not quite in the brutal Warner mould) was Victoria prodigy Will Pucovski, whose immediate future remains clouded by the most recent of a series of concussion injuries.
The other options on the national selection panel's radar based on recent inclusions to Test squads and Australia A line-ups are Victoria's Marcus Harris (part of the current Pakistan touring party) and Bryce Street (Queensland), as well as South Australia right-hander Henry Hunt.
Western Australia's Cameron Bancroft and Queensland pair Joe Burns and Matthew Renshaw have also served as Warner's opening partner in recent Test campaigns, but it's no slight on any of the above to observe they collectively represent the more 'traditional' form of staid and steady openers.
During Warner's absence through suspension in 2018, incumbent limited-overs captain Aaron Finch was tried at Test level but his five-game tenure yielded just two half-centuries and an average of 27.80 and he has not played a first-class match since 2019.
As such, if Australia are to find a replacement for Warner who can fill the highly specialised and extraordinarily rare role of consistently prolific but bullish opener who neuters opponents and sets up games, they may need to revisit the route they took when installing Hayden's long-term successor.
Warner's pedigree in the T20 game was deemed, at the time, inappropriate for a Test match opener but so readily did the former Australia under-age representative adapt to long-form cricket he notched his first Test ton in just his second appearance (against New Zealand at Hobart in 2011).
And a month later he announced himself as a potent force following in Hayden's blazing trail by clubbing a century in a session against India at the WACA before finishing that innings with a remarkable 180 from 159 balls faced.
Rogers believes if selectors are looking for a similar sort of imposing presence at the top of Australia's Test batting order, they could consider examining KFC BBL contributions and investing in a player who might not fit the accepted view of a red-ball opener.
He cited Tasmania's Ben McDermott, who starred for Hobart Hurricanes in BBL|11 and has played 24 one-day internationals for Australia, but acknowledged his first-class return (2288 runs at 33.15 with two centuries) does not include runs made against the new ball.
Rogers said a more likely option might be Victoria's Nic Maddinson, who boasts significant experience as a first-class opener and more recently has proved a regular and rapid scorer of runs in the middle-order.
"It's a tough game, so if you look around I don't really think there's anyone coming out who's in a similar mould to Davey," Rogers said.
"Perhaps if they (selectors) thought of someone like a Nic Maddinson who has shown those qualities at times, but apart from that I can't think of anyone who's played in a similar mode recently.
"Maybe they look at T20 cricket, where there's obviously people like Ben McDermott but it's just so rare to find someone like Davey.
"You need all those qualities, which makes you think – with people questioning his (Warner's) place when he's perhaps not performing so well - that sometimes the grass isn't always greener."
https://www.cricket.com.au/news/fea...ener-england-ashes-2023-india-tour/2022-03-01
==
As Australia's Test cricketers landed in Islamabad last weekend to a welcome of glee and gratitude, there was one figure on the team bus travelling amid head-of-state-style security who Pakistan players and fans might quietly wish had not made the historic trip.
Like a vast majority of his squad mates, David Warner was setting foot in Pakistan for the first time in his 13-year international career, but his reputation is known and feared across the Islamic republic.
That's because Warner's Test record against Pakistan is beyond remarkable.
No other opener has scored more than the five centuries the left-hander has plundered in his seven contests with Australia's next Test opponent, and he is the only player with more than five innings at the elite level to average 100 or more (108.40) against Pakistan.
And even acknowledging the obvious caveat his past two campaigns have been fought on familiar turf in Australia, the 35-year-old's past five innings have yielded scores of 144, 113, 55, 154 and 335no.
While a Test opener averaging 200 might seem the stuff of fantasy (or selective statistics), it's not just the sheer volume of runs Warner has piled on against powerless Pakistan bowlers but also the mode in which he's collected them that makes him such a feared adversary.
Warner's scoring rate in Asia (including the UAE) of almost 67 per 100 balls faced is the fastest by any Australia Test opener in those markedly unfamiliar conditions, the next-best being fellow left-hander Matthew Hayden's 59.63.
The 113 Warner peeled off early in that string of recent scoring sprees against Pakistan came on a memorable first day of the 2017 new year's Test at the SCG where he plundered an extraordinary century in the game's first session.
And he is one of only two opening batters in Test cricket's annals (minimum two innings) to average triple digits against Pakistan's bowlers, with the other being his expected first-wicket partner for the upcoming series, Usman Khawaja (102.67).
But the likelihood Australia will enter their first offshore Test assignment in almost three years with an opening pair both aged 35 only serves to underscore the quandary facing national selectors, their new captain and yet-to-be appointed coach as they ponder the team's evolution.
Noting Australia's first-class ranks are currently flush with middle-order batting options, quality allrounders, auxiliary wicketkeeper-batters and all manner of pace and spin bowling back-ups awaiting their opportunity, Warner surely looms as the most difficult incumbent member to eventually replace.
That's certainly the view of Chris Rogers, currently coach of Victoria and Warner's Test opening partner in 22 Tests between 2013 and 2015, when Rogers called time on his international career aged 37.
"I think so," Rogers told cricket.com.au when asked if his ex-teammates' shoes would prove the most difficult for any new member to fill as Australia undergoes transition in the Cummins era.
"That's because you have a player who is an X-factor but has consistency in his game as well, and those two don't generally go hand-in-hand.
"I know he hasn't performed as well recently as he has at other times in his career, but equally he brings a presence to the side.
"Opposition know that if they don't get it right to him, the game could be gone in an hour or a session. He's that kind of player.
"A lot of other players you can be a bit more patient with and try and wear them down, but with Davey he has that ability as an opening batter to put pressure back on the bowling side and that's not all that common."
Warner has previously indicated he might need to consider cutting back on his international commitments to limited-overs cricket – most likely T20 internationals – because of the increasingly demanding playing schedule, but he currently remains an all-formats Australia player.
But despite recording the slowest scoring rate (50.74) of any of his Test series in Australia during the recent Vodafone Ashes, Warner claimed during the summer he was driven by the prospect of winning a Test series in India, with that opportunity expected to be scheduled in early 2023.
He also suggested he "might think about going back" to England for the next Ashes battle later that year by which stage he would be pushing 37 years of age.
Australia's current interim men's team coach Andrew McDonald observed prior to the team's departure for Pakistan last week that Warner's reduced return against England was directly attributable to bowler-friendly conditions in which most top-order batters struggled.
McDonald also backed Australia's second-most prolific Test opener (with 7545 runs at the top of the order) behind Hayden (8625) to not only prosper but continue putting pressure back on to opposition bowlers in the manner he's done throughout his career to date.
"There's always speculation about players when they're in their mid-30s as to whether they can or can't do it still," McDonald said.
"It was difficult for him this Ashes no doubt – two pink-ball games plus some grass on wickets made it difficult for the opening batters.
"In Melbourne (third Ashes Test) we saw what he can do. That was a difficult wicket and I think he was almost a run-a-ball 38.
"We saw the speculation (about his position) leading into the (T20) World Cup, but he's a world-class performer and going to Pakistan he'll be ready, his preparation will be spot on and he'll sum up the conditions when that first ball is bowled."
However, as a devoted father to his three young daughters (with wife Candice), Warner has spoken often about the difficulty he finds in leaving his family for lengthy overseas commitments, which only adds to the surety his playing days are dwindling.
Rogers and Hayden are the only two regular Australia openers in the post-war era to have played on at Test level after turning 37 and Warren Bardsley (who played his last Test in 1926 aged 43) is the most recent to don the Baggy Green Cap and face the new ball in his 40s.
Australia's selectors were blessed with the emergence of Warner – via the T20 format, in which he represented Australia before playing a first-class game – as an aggressive, game-changing opener in Hayden's mould barely two years after the indomitable Queenslander's exit.
As Rogers is acutely aware, the value of a batter launching at a rival team's new-ball bowlers delivers benefits far in excess of those obvious on the scoreboard.
"If you have fielders who are suddenly out of the slips and being put into the (in-field) ring and used as sweepers, the way the momentum shifts so quickly can be really hard to pull back," Rogers said of the sorts of advantages that flow from belligerent batters like Warner.
"And then it also starts to benefit the batter down the other end, because there's less pressure on him as well.
"From my point of view, when I batted with him he was the kind of guy the opposition was always focused on so you could go a little bit under the radar.
"You could kind of ride the wave that he was setting.
"It's going to be tough to find a replacement.
"Opening the batting is very hard, so finding another quality opener is going to be hard enough but trying to find someone who gives the side the qualities that Davey has is going to be extra hard."
The emerging player who seemed most likely to take up the role of free-scoring opener (albeit not quite in the brutal Warner mould) was Victoria prodigy Will Pucovski, whose immediate future remains clouded by the most recent of a series of concussion injuries.
The other options on the national selection panel's radar based on recent inclusions to Test squads and Australia A line-ups are Victoria's Marcus Harris (part of the current Pakistan touring party) and Bryce Street (Queensland), as well as South Australia right-hander Henry Hunt.
Western Australia's Cameron Bancroft and Queensland pair Joe Burns and Matthew Renshaw have also served as Warner's opening partner in recent Test campaigns, but it's no slight on any of the above to observe they collectively represent the more 'traditional' form of staid and steady openers.
During Warner's absence through suspension in 2018, incumbent limited-overs captain Aaron Finch was tried at Test level but his five-game tenure yielded just two half-centuries and an average of 27.80 and he has not played a first-class match since 2019.
As such, if Australia are to find a replacement for Warner who can fill the highly specialised and extraordinarily rare role of consistently prolific but bullish opener who neuters opponents and sets up games, they may need to revisit the route they took when installing Hayden's long-term successor.
Warner's pedigree in the T20 game was deemed, at the time, inappropriate for a Test match opener but so readily did the former Australia under-age representative adapt to long-form cricket he notched his first Test ton in just his second appearance (against New Zealand at Hobart in 2011).
And a month later he announced himself as a potent force following in Hayden's blazing trail by clubbing a century in a session against India at the WACA before finishing that innings with a remarkable 180 from 159 balls faced.
Rogers believes if selectors are looking for a similar sort of imposing presence at the top of Australia's Test batting order, they could consider examining KFC BBL contributions and investing in a player who might not fit the accepted view of a red-ball opener.
He cited Tasmania's Ben McDermott, who starred for Hobart Hurricanes in BBL|11 and has played 24 one-day internationals for Australia, but acknowledged his first-class return (2288 runs at 33.15 with two centuries) does not include runs made against the new ball.
Rogers said a more likely option might be Victoria's Nic Maddinson, who boasts significant experience as a first-class opener and more recently has proved a regular and rapid scorer of runs in the middle-order.
"It's a tough game, so if you look around I don't really think there's anyone coming out who's in a similar mould to Davey," Rogers said.
"Perhaps if they (selectors) thought of someone like a Nic Maddinson who has shown those qualities at times, but apart from that I can't think of anyone who's played in a similar mode recently.
"Maybe they look at T20 cricket, where there's obviously people like Ben McDermott but it's just so rare to find someone like Davey.
"You need all those qualities, which makes you think – with people questioning his (Warner's) place when he's perhaps not performing so well - that sometimes the grass isn't always greener."
https://www.cricket.com.au/news/fea...ener-england-ashes-2023-india-tour/2022-03-01
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, i think he can easily play for three more years.
