Grizzled pro Warner finds different but effective way to get the job done

David Warner takes to the bowling of Jack Leach at the ’Gabba yesterday. Picture: AFP.

Yesterday’s most appealing statistic at the Gabba was an echo. During the 2019 Ashes, David Warner eked out 95 runs from 184 deliveries; in the Ashes of 2021-22, he now has 94 from 176.

The difference? Ten dismissals to one, and perhaps one bowler in his absence. Yesterday there was no Stuart Broad, no Dukes ball, nobody challenging Warner from round the wicket, and almost no memory of his travails twenty-eight months ago, which were, after all, pre-Covid. This was a fine example of what might be called late Warner, the grizzled pro, the former scapegrace.

Eleven years on from his Test debut on this ground, Warner is nearing a hundred Tests — but for injury, suspension and some cancelled tours, he would already be there.

All the same, Warner is slowing down. In his first full Test summer, he went hell for leather at 85 per hundred balls. Even five years ago, he was not far below 80. Since then, he has throttled back into the low 60s — yesterday it was 53. Warner in Test cricket these days is like Daniel Ricciardo driving to the shops: impulse toned, hurry reined, happy enough to know he’ll get there.

Yet his game has expanded not contracted. If the boundaries no longer cascade, the singles pile up — he has, after all these years, found a use for the non-striker’s end. His hands used to be like the fists of Roberto Duran; now they guide edges down. More than a quarter of his runs yesterday came behind point. He stowed the reverse sweep in favour of the orthodox.

For all that, Warner brings an abiding relish to the contest. He likes the struggle, embraces the push back. He barks out his calls like an RSM giving orders on a parade ground — ‘Wait on!’; ‘No run!’; ‘Push push!’ Through his helmet grille can be glimpsed a range of expressions: grins and grimaces, winces and winks. Beaten yesterday by Chris Woakes, his lips formed a perfect ‘O’ of appreciation.

Being beaten was something a batter had to reconcile themselves to yesterday, the pitch providing continued sideways movement and bounce, and Warner did. His false shot percentage was high. He punched just short of fielders. He played out maidens. His sixes, off Jack Leach just before lunch, were about tactics not testosterone.

By Mark Wood’s pace, Warner looked at times genuinely unsettled, swaying back, hanging to leg, throwing kitchen sink, cistern and laundry tub at anything wide, and coming out after lunch in a chest guard — a little comfort he might once have scorned.

England will rue the chances he offered, and the failure of the third umpire to call the first three balls of Ben Stokes’s first over, the call of any one of which might have warned Stokes of the danger. Stokes’ muted response suggested someone who feared he had been overstriding but carried on through not being pulled up on it.

Stokes, all the same, should know better. His first Test wicket, if you recall, was overridden by an off-field no-ball call, the on-field umpire having failed to penalise Stokes’s earlier transgressions. Never trust the system, Ben. And when your back foot is landing over the bowling crease you are asking for trouble on the popping crease.

It was hugely consequential setback, not only in runs terms With Warner out for 17, there would have been no chase back to the boundary for Stokes half an hour later, no twinge of his left knee, no proppy and expensive later overs on one leg, no doubt about his fitness for the rest of the tour. Although maybe this was always a risk with a player who has managed to get through just one first-class match in nine months.

After England’s first day travails, there was at this sage a touch of fatalism about it all — it’s never a surprise when having lost your wallet and dropped your phone you lock your keys in your car. Ask Rory Burns, who shelled Warner on 49 off Robinson going to his left. Behind his glasses, he seemed to be trying to go incognito.

England was a bit like that all day — just slightly out, whether it was a yard of length here, a foot too much depth at slip, even just the ability to close out five good balls with a sixth. A touch more sharpness in the field and Haseeb Hameed might have run Warner out from short leg on 60.

It was almost like England was doing the preparation necessary to play the Test match in the Test match itself, looking better as the day wore on, and gradually a little luck came their way. Labuschagne let his contempt for Leach get the better of him, and Steve Smith’s hectic cameo recalled a similar innings here two years against Pakistan when it was like he could not get a song out of his head.

When Robinson deceived Warner with a slower ball and Cameron Green with a back break, Australia had lost four wickets in eight overs. It took an innings from Travis Head humming with strokes to restore Australia’s momentum, as fatigue took a toll on the visitors ahead of the second new ball. The stat here was a counterblast. From the 2019 Ashes, Head scavenged a single half century. He now has a maiden hundred, Australia a lead of almost 200, and three days to make it count.