David Warner’s first century since his return for Australia an emotional relief and a warning to rivals

The celebration from David Warner on completing his first century for Australia since he returned to the side following a year long ban was exuberant and drenched in obvious relief.

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This ecstatic leap to celebrate the hundred came with no brand endorsement. The sense of exultation — the relief — was obvious. Unadulterated. Exuberant.

Something else; the look on the faces of his team-mates when the camera broke from the conjugal embrace with his batting partner and scanned the balcony.

Steve Smith’s warm smile told a story.

Like the man who sparked California’s worst ever wild fires while attempting to seal a wasps nest last summer, David Warner lit a match that razed the landscape. Left smoking charcoal where homes once stood, tree stumps, stunned survivors and huddled, frightened families.

Warner singed and covered in soot.

Relief was etched on David Warner’s face when he went to three figures against Pakistan.

His heavily pregnant wife, Candice Falzon, is heading to the UK this week as the Warners prepare for their third child.

For a while they were all he had left.

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The game banished him. The sponsors raced for the fire exit, trampling each other in a George Constanza like haste. Sorry kids. The team had moved on as best it could.

Some wear their hearts on their sleeves. Steve Smith’s so vulnerable it’s as though all his organs are exposed, as if the cadaver got back to its daily chores after the medical students had laid everything inside open to the elements.

It was the first century Warner has scored for his country since the sandpaper scandal.

Watching Smith you see the inner workings.

Warner is the tortoise, protected by its carapace it pulled its head and limbs in when the trauma erupted and is only now re-emerging after the shock has worn off.

His anxieties and doubts have remained hidden. There’s been no attempt to lay them bare in a tell-all interview, but there’s been hints of the emotional turmoil in the tentative re-entry to the team.

Quiet at first in meetings, apprehensive in the first three innings, only now is there a sense he is back on his feet.

“That was my own thing. I was just focusing on playing the next game that I was playing in, training as hard as I could,” he said after the innings.

“I didn’t need to say anything. What was said was said back in those press conferences.”

Warner had kept his counsel despite 89no and a man of the match award in the first win over Afghanistan aside from a few words when they gave him the award for the television.

He had nothing worth saying on the early dismissal against the West Indies, or the frustrated 56 from 84 balls in the loss to India.

Captain Aaron Finch and Warner built what proved to be a match-winning platform — just.

Having scored 107 from 111 balls in an innings which defied an inspired Mohammad Amir, he accepted the man of the match trophy, gave it to a young fan — as he often does — then sat down and answered questions about cricket and the comeback.

“As a top four unit, we always talk about scoring hundreds,” Warner said in response to the opening question about his response to the milestone, deflecting it away for a single to get off the mark before seeing space for a second.

“Personally it’s a great thing. It obviously was a long time coming. Against Afghanistan I felt like I had no rhythm. The next game, obviously, got one that sort of kicked off a wicket, but I was a bit lazy. And still last game they bowled really straight to me.

“But to come out here play the way I know I can play was awesome. But I was elated. It was a bit of relief in a way, but I still think I left a lot out there. You know, 70 balls to go. And with the weather, trying to build partnerships again, I probably hold responsible for the way we fell apart there.”

Warner credited the support of his family as getting him through some dark times in the past 18 months

He was on the ledge for a moment there when it all went down.

It wouldn’t have taken much to push him off, but David Warner is a cricket survivor. He has a reptilian reflex that focuses his energies on finding something to kill and eat.

Out at NSW Cricket’s new headquarters on Thursday somebody who has played with him from the time they were kids said he couldn’t recall the batsman ever being in an extended trough. He always finds a way.

“I was always coming back to international cricket if selected,” Warner said before deflecting the ball off his hip again.

“The thing that kept me going was my wife and my kids. Got great support at home, my family. And my wife is just, she’s just my rock. She’s unbelievable. She’s determined, disciplined, selfless.

“And I hold a lot of credit to her. She’s a strong woman. And she got me out of bed a lot in those sort of first sort of 12 weeks, and got me back running and training hard as I could, and prepared for sort of the other formats of the game I was playing and I did play.”

Talk of family can be fatuous or worse with sporting types.

I’m a mother, she says as if it excuses all. They’re my everything he says, when everybody knows they are part only of a more complex fabric.

There were noticeably less boos fro Warner and Smith from a predominantly Pakistan supporting crowd.

Warner, however, speaks with integrity. Falzon kicked his arse when they first met. He was talented but lazy. She encouraged him to ease up on the drinking, take up training and see where it would lead.

It took a while to find traction, but eventually it led to him finding a permanent place in all three Australian men’s teams. On tour her and the girls cool his temperature and offer his restless mind focus.

Warner has taken a while to settle back in, maybe he was trying too hard, it was understandable if he wasn’t because even though he says it was his aim to return, the thought of not doing it haunted him and drove him on.

“There was always that going through my mind,” he said. “I think that’s what drove me to keep being as fit as I can, keep scoring as many runs as I can in the Twenty20 tournaments that I was playing in. Grade cricket.

‘Really enjoyed going out there … the different obscure fields that were being set because the wickets are a tad slower. I really enjoyed all that. It was really, really hard work.

“And I think going through those tough times and sort of regrouping with myself to put myself in the best position to come back to international cricket, I did everything I could. I really, really knuckled down and trained my backside off.

“And I’m just grateful for this opportunity and as I said before, I’m just really looking forward to what’s coming ahead of us here in the World Cup. Pumped to be back, and the boys are on fire here.

“We’ve got a great sort of group harmony, a lot of smiles on the faces as you can see in a lot of the training sessions and out in the field. So, look, I’m pumped.”