100: David Warner

91 matches. 7584 runs @ 47.4. 24 hundreds. Highest score: 335*

12 years. 4x good. 1x excellent. 1x Bradman.

The discussion

You cannot win a Test match in the first hour, or so the saying goes. But whoever coined that phrase had clearly never seen David Warner play. According to HowStat[3], in the history of Test cricket, only six players have scored a hundred in the first session on day one of a Test match:

• Victor Trumper (1902)

• Charlie Macartney (1926)

• Donald Bradman (1930)[1]

• Majid Khan (1976)

• David Warner (2017)

• Shikhar Dhawan (2018)

Source: HowStat

Let’s repeat that. There’s been more than 2000 Tests and counting, and it is a feat that has only occurred six times thus far.

David Warner was plucked from near-obscurity almost straight into international cricket — which says a lot about his meteoric rise, as well as the potential he showed early in his career. Since he made his Australian debut in a T20 in January 2009, two months before his first-class debut in the Sheffield Shield in March that year, Warner has become a dominant figure at the top of the order. The uniqueness of debuting in international cricket before first-class cricket should not be overlooked here. Let’s not forget that early in Warner’s career there was a train of thought, shared by many, that his game was unsuited for the Test arena. His cavalier attitude and propensity to attack in all situations were thought likely to be his undoing. Openers were traditionally more circumspect, which is why there are a lot more examples of openers like Justin Langer, or Geoffrey Boycott to take things a step further, than there are like Virender Sehwag. But Warner picked up the gauntlet laid down by the likes of Sehwag and Matthew Hayden before him and ran with it. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that he picked up the gauntlet and started belting bowling attacks with it. Instead of his positivity becoming his undoing, Warner almost seamlessly transferred his aggression from the shortest form of the game to the longest form.

Very few cricketers in history have been able to turn the tide of a Test in under an hour. All the cricketers I can think of with that ability found themselves in contention for this Hall of Fame. And David Warner can very much win a Test match before lunch on day one. In addition, his highest score of 335*, a mammoth innings in a series where he belted 489 runs in two innings against Pakistan in the summer of 2019, also emphasises his ability to make, as Raj likes to say, the ‘Big-Daddy hundreds’ that win games at the highest level.

Taking a look at the three peaks of David Warner’s career thus far demonstrates how he has dominated Australian summers at the top of the order. In the ‘Career Peak’ table, I’ve highlighted three series (against South Africa, New Zealand and Pakistan) in which Warner scored at least 489 runs from only two or three matches.

One of the knocks on David Warner is that he does not perform away like he does at home. His average in Australia is 63.20, but in away Tests it is 33.17. We only need to think back to the 2019 Ashes, when Stuart Broad had Warner in his pocket to such an extent that Warner’s place in the Test side was called into question. But Warner bounced back in the months to follow, putting that conversation to rest during an Australian summer that was as dominant for an opener as there has ever been.

Even allowing for that more modest record away from home, Warner’s current stats tell a story of a match-winner, someone who can get big runs: his 24 hundreds, at a rate of 15.09 hundreds per 100 innings, ranks 23rd in both categories among qualified players. His conversion rate of fifties (30) to hundreds (24) is excellent — when Warner gets in, he invariably goes on and gets hundreds — big ones. His total runs, average and fifties per 100 innings all also sit inside the top 50 of players considered for the Hall of Fame.

Okay, now the issue that we must address as part of David Warner's legacy. His on-field demeanour, and his role in the Cape Town saga.[2]

If you are an Australian, David Warner embodies an attitude that many empathise with. He is an underdog. The little guy. David against Goliath, only David has the blade and Goliath has a six-ounce rock with which he is trying to strike David between the eyes. To open the batting in Test cricket you need a healthy supply of confidence and a steely resolve. David Warner has that in spades, and more. He has, in many ways, inherited (and run with) the embodiment of Steven Waugh's aggressive 'mental disintegration' approach. Maybe he has too much confidence. Too much resolve. Perhaps the chip on his shoulder is too big for him to be a likeable character on the field.

The problem for David Warner is that his approach does not sit well if you are in the opposition. We have all had teammates like this. Love them when they are in your XI, hate them (or at least sports-hate them) when they are on the other team jawing at you from gully all day, in your face between every over, from the first ball until dusk. The kind of opposition you probably would not seek out for a beverage in the clubhouse after the match. Warner is the larger-than-life persona that fills the role of sports villain almost to perfection.

That kind of aggressive attitude can benefit your team (it can backfire, too), but it does become part of your legacy. So, too, the sandpaper incident. Whatever role Warner played, or was alleged to have played, was put under the microscope not least in part because, for many, David Warner is public enemy no. 1. His role in cheating on the cricket field was inexcusable, and he paid a high price for his role in that fiasco.

The Verdict

Warner's legacy in Test cricket will always have two faces. On one, an aggressive, dynamic, match-winning opening batter. On the other, an abrasive character guilty of crossing the line on too many occasions. That makes it difficult to separate the performer from the performance, or the player from the person. Regardless of his likeability, the Cape Town incident hurt his case for the Hall of Fame. How you play cricket is important, perhaps almost as important (to me) as how well you play the game.

Which side do you see when the coin is flipped? That largely depends on whose side David Warner is on. What is clear, regardless of how you perceive David Warner as a person, is that there are few cricketers that can influence a game like he can. Warner’s peak shows his ability to dominate from the top of the order (something we like at the Top Order Podcast) and his ability to go on and get hundreds (and ‘Big-Daddy’ hundreds) shows that he can put his team on the front foot.

For me, I have to weigh the dominant on-field displays with the bat against both the frequent confrontations with the opposition (not that big of a deal in my eyes) with his involvement in one of the darker days of Australian cricket history (a very big deal). With a declared bias for David Warner, even I have to admit that his legacy in the Hall of Fame will always have a mark against it. That said, he is a world-class opener whose performances deserve a spot in this list. At the conclusion of his career, he will almost certainly be pushing for a higher spot in the rankings.

In one word

Bludgeoning

Notes

[1] Bradman finished the day 309* on his way to 334 in under four sessions. He is the only cricketer to score hundreds in consecutive sessions. Bradman is that good that he steals the thunder of a footnote of another Hall of Fame cricketer.

[2] I will never refer to the Cape Town incident as sandpapergate in writing. People know that Watergate was a hotel, right? It was not an incident with water, it was a scandal that was brought to light due to an incident at the Watergate hotel. I will allow the cricketing incident to be referred to CapeTowngate at a push. But then I will lose context for most listeners. I’ll just drop it, shall I?

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo

career peak

Source: ESPN CricInfo