Australia v South Africa: First day shows David Warner needs his stars to align

David Warner’s wicket was only one of 15 to fall on a gripping opening day of the Gabba Test, but it seems the game has caught up to him.

David Warner walks off after being dismissed by South Africa's Kagiso Rabada during day one of the first cricket Test match between Australia and South Africa at the Gabba in Brisbane. Picture: Patrick Hamilton / AFP

David Warner is in trouble and so was Australia for a period there in a gripping first day of the Test at the Gabba.

The home side is 5-145 at stumps in reply to South Africa’s 152 earlier in the day. Travis Head will resume in the morning on 78no.

This is shaping up to be a short, sharp and very competitive Test match, after 15 wickets fell on the first day.

Warner, the veteran opener, the ever reliable batsman who has played 99 Tests for his country, had the worst of possible exits — out first ball for a golden duck.

Leaping up to a short ball from Kagiso Rabada, bottom hand off the bat, his only thought was to smother the ball which ballooned gently to short leg.

Marnus Labuschagne, who scored 502 runs in the first two Tests of the summer, arrived to face the second ball of the match and was gone soon after for just 11.

The first drop looked in total control against the West Indies but was hurried and harassed by the speed and skill of South African pace attack.

Rabada’s 257 wickets before this match — at one of the best strike rates in the history of the game — signals his talent.

The 2m tall, left-armer Marco Jansen is earlier in his career, but has already gained a fearsome reputation for his pace and bounce.

Rabada picked up Warner with his first ball from the Vulture St end and Jansen picked up Labuschagne with his first when he replaced the more experienced quick.

Then came the furiously fast 29-year-old Anrich Nortje.

He didn’t repeat the efforts of the first two, but only had to wait until his second delivery in Test cricket in Australia to square up Usman Khawaja and send him on his way for 11.

Nortje came up with an even better ball that darted back through Steve Smith’s defence late in the day.

The former skipper was on 32 and had put on 138 in partnership with Travis Head before his fall. Few would have held out the delivery that got him.

Scott Boland was sent in as night watchman but was removed by Rabada from the final ball of the day.

Kagiso Rabada of South Africa after taking the wicket of Scott Boland. Picture: Getty Images

Australia had sent South Africa in and bowled them out for 152 by tea, but they did not bowl as well as they should have and allowed the visitors to get up from the canvas when they had been 4-27 early.

Wicket keeper Kyle Verreynne’s 64 and a solid 38 from Temba Bavuma saved the day for the Proteas.

Mitchell Starc (3-41), Scott Boland (2-28) and Nathan Lyon (3-14) were the pick of the bowlers.

Pat Cummins (2-35) looked strangely out of rhythm and that seemed to throw the whole attack a little out of kilter.

The captain conceded eight leg byes from his first two deliveries and never really looked settled.

Head was the hero for Australia on the day. Combining with Smith he showed little regard for the scoreboard or the opposition attack, moving to his half century with a six from only 48 deliveries.

He belted a benign England attack to a run-a-ball 152 at the same venue last year, but to do it against the South African bowlers better indicates the abilities of the South Australian who scored 99 and 175 in the two previous matches of this summer.

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A new episode of Cricket, Et Cetera: Head Full Of Steam

Peter and Gideon review the first day of the First Test at the Gabba, enjoying a counterpunching innings from Travis Head that has taken Australia to within seven runs of South Africa’s first innings score by stumps, musing on a first ball duck for David Warner. Also: your summer’s pronunciation guide

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Back, however, to Warner.

The game has caught up to and is passing him by.

Just like it did Adam Gilchrist in 2007-08. Just like it did Matthew Hayden in 2008-09. Just like it did Ricky Ponting in 2011-12. Just like it did Michael Clarke in 2015.

With Gilchrist it came in a flash. He dropped a catch. He bent to pick it up and he realised that was it for him. The same flash hit Mitchell Johnson at the top of his run on a flat wicket in Perth in 2015.

Batsmen, however, die more slowly. They creak to a halt. There’re stages to the process. Often they think that they just have to work a little harder to get back to where they were. There’s denial where they maintain they’re batting well in the nets. They’ll tell themselves they just need to tweak this or tweak that. The selectors grant them more time than young men because they’ve proven themselves over so many years.

Then they know.

Ponting spent a long time in the exit lounge for reasons greater than his own ego. Clarke dragged himself through an Ashes because captains don’t quit mid tour. Hayden got there eventually.

They were all a similar age, they’d all been great servants of the game, they’d all run out of petrol.

Warner got a brute of a delivery. A snorter from Rabada first up that was into his arm pit. He was trapped, pinned, with no wriggle room, his only option to fend the ball up to Khaya Zondo at short leg.

You get ones like that when you are an opener, it’s part of the games ebb and flow, but that’s why you cash in against an attack like the West Indies. When you get yourself out to the wide ones from a lesser attack you can’t complain.

The game has no patience for people who don’t take their chances.

Warner had his eyes on an exit before next summer, but only a miraculous surge of late life form will should see him get on the plane for the Test series against India and England.

The opener scored a century against England less than a month back in the short form and will remain a critical part of the T20 and ODI sides. The white ball and its urgent demands still suit him, but Test cricket is a harder task.

He is one of the few successful three format players, but that task gets harder with age and harder with the ridiculous fixturing in the modern game.

Usman Khawaja is a similar age but is not in either Australian short-format team. As a result of that he was able to play four first-class games with Queensland leading into the Test summer.

Once it might not have mattered what preparation Warner had but now it feels like he has to get all the stars aligned. Once he talked about shedding the white-ball games and concentrating on Tests, but now that seems an unlikely path to retirement.

Commentating on Channel 7, Ponting acknowledged that the end could be near for the batsman.

“I think what he should be doing is being as realistic and looking to the future as he can,” he said.

“Like I said before, he deserves the chance to finish the way he wants to finish. I would hate to see him get to an Indian tour or at the start of the Ashes tour and then get the tap on the shoulder.

“That would be a disappointing way for his career to end … it might be after the Sydney Test. Let’s wait and see. Also, I hope that he gets some runs between now and then.”

His former coach, Justin Langer, publicly backed the batsman to survive.

“Well, of course we will read into it. Everyone will read into the duck, the first ball duck,” he said.

“It can also happen. David Warner is such an experienced player. I have said leading up to this Test series, I thought he would really lift them this series. It is a big one.

“Throughout the start of the summer, through a lot of last summer, he was getting off to great starts. It is now just turning those great starts … Australia know how important he is for them, particularly against South Africa with fast bowling, he can get the momentum going Australia’s way.

“He will be disappointed. The team will be disappointed. But I said leading into this series, I would not be writing off David Warner for a single second. He is a street fighter, and he is important for the Australian cricket team,” Langer said.