End of a Test career opens up new chapter for David Warner

David Warner received a fond farewell from the MCG crowd after his dismissal in the second innings against Pakistan. Picture: AFP

Stand by. With the Melbourne Test done, Australia’s rock at the top of the order is almost done too. We are about to enter David Warner week. And what a week it will be.

He is possibly the most controversial and divisive player of his era. A constant and powerful presence in the modern game and all its variations. There are segments of the cricket population who will never forgive him his indiscretions and most likely they are among the mob who never liked the cut of his Matraville jib, but there was warm applause for him from the Melbourne crowd when he left the field after batting for the last time at the ground – a venue where he has averaged 50 and scored three Test centuries.

Warner gave them a wave. He’s a showman and one universally embraced in India, but the response to him at home has always been more, ahhhh, nuanced.

A fixture in the opening position for over a decade. Never far from the news, never dull and soon to enter cricket’s afterlife where the halls are painted gold and the money flows from domestic franchise fountains.

Naturally, Warner is entering interesting territory here. He has already said he will not sign another contract with Cricket Australia. That frees him to play where he wants, but of equal importance, to sign commercial deals with whoever he wants. When you are on the Jolimont dollar you cannot be associated with brands who are competitors of its commercial sponsors.

Will Australian cricket continue to select him in short format games even though he does not have a contract? There is another T20 World Cup in June and beyond that a Champions Trophy in 2025. Before we even get into the long grass on that we will have the Warner farewell from Test cricket press conference.

What will he say? God’s gift to a news cycle, will Warner throw a little hand grenade before he bows out? He has a book deal and there will be beads of sweat on more than a few foreheads over the contents of the Warner autobiography.

Sydney will be his 112th Test match. A journey that began in December 2011 – although we were all well aware of this strange young batter from his T20 debut against South Africa at the MCG in January 2009. The pugnacious left-hander’s brutal dismantlement of Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and the like was like nothing we’d seen before. It was something we never expected to see in Test cricket and he was someone we didn’t expect to see in that format.

Most everybody but Greg Chappell and David Warner were wrong on that front. That pair had their eyes on the main prize but it took a while for anyone to take them seriously.

Asked recently who would replace him Warner replied, drolly, that they are going to have to find someone who scores at 70 runs per 100 balls. Good one, Davey.

Western Australia Cricket Association chief executive Christina Matthews observed recently that one of the issues that arise in these situations is that we expect the person replacing an incumbent to be the same. We want a seamless transition. We expect them to be as good from the get-go as the person they have replaced.

Remember when Shane Warne retired? There was so many auditions, so much casting about and while Nathan Lyon eventually rose above the pack and grew into the job, there was a restlessness among fans and spectators.

Warner has close to 9000 Test runs. Only Ricky Ponting (13,378), Allan Border (11,174), Steve Waugh (10,927) and Steve Smith (9472) have scored more.

Unlike all of the above, Warner got his spot, stuck to it and was never dropped. Aside from four Tests missed through injury, he was banned for a year after Sandpapergate and an altercation with Joe Root in 2013 cost him another couple of games. Essentially Australian cricket had the good fortune to send Warner out to open 12 years ago and that was that.

He may have caused them concerns with his Ashes batting in 2019 but Warner’s consistency has been his super power. Even Don Bradman was dropped.

Cricket pundits have been debating who should replace Warner for some time now (when they were not debating whether he still deserved that place in the side). Should his successor be a traditional opener, if so whom? Is there an opportunity to bring Cameron Green into the side and re-engineer an opener from the top order?

Ponting is hard set against the notion, but Simon Katich reckons moving up the order to the top spot is not as hard as it looks – he’d never opened in first class cricket before giving it a crack in Tests.

Asked in July, Warner nominated Matt Renshaw.

“He is a very good player,” he said. “He can play both formats quite easily. He’s tall. He’s exactly like Haydos (Matt Hayden). We spoke about him in the early part of his career.

“I’ve always felt and held him in high regard as a very good player. He’s worked on his technique. He’s been in and out of the squads, and I think he’ll make a great replacement.”

Warner has since changed his tune when asked who he thinks should take his spot, nominating Marcus Harris this week.

“It’s a tough one,” Warner, said on Tuesday when asked who was next in line. “It’s obviously up to the selectors, but from my position, it’s whoever worked their backside off and has been there for a while in the background.

“I think Harry (Harris) has been that person who is going to have that chance. He got a hundred the other day (in a tour match against Pakistan). He missed out in a couple of other games, but he’s always been that person who was next in line.

“So if the selectors show their faith in him, then I’m sure he’ll come out and play the way he does. He’s not too dissimilar to me. If he sees it in his areas, he goes for it and plays his shots. I think he would fit well.”

The talk about re-engineering the likes of Green as an opener – which seems unlikely – would at least open up the possibility of someone filling the gap in the other formats as well.

Warner has 22 ODI centuries and almost 7000 runs, add to that almost 3000 T20 runs and you have one of those rare all-format cricketers.

With him in the side the Australians have won a World Test Championship, two ODI World Cups and a T20 world crown. There’s been some lean times. When Australia hit a wall in 2016 against South Africa he remained in situ, a pillar of the reconstruction. When the side lost its mind against South Africa in 2018 he was pilloried and exiled for his role in the whole affair.

It says much about Warner’s reputation that for more than a few he was the architect of the plan and the one player who must still carry shame for it. You do not hear the same accusations made against Smith who was captain at the time or Cameron Bancroft who committed the crime.

Warner has, apart from expressing remorse, kept his own counsel on events of that time since. You don’t have to know Warner well to know that it does not come naturally to him to keep his thoughts to himself.