The Ashes 2019: It’s time to let David Warner off the leash

David Warner’s Ashes failures could be a sign he is ill-suited to the new ethos of Australian cricket.

England allrounder Ben Stokes celebrates as David Warner is caught behind Picture: AFP

This is being written from a distance. I haven’t seen Dave Warner in the nets at Manchester. I haven’t bumped into him in the lift at the hotel. I haven’t peered over my newspaper at the breakfast buffet to see how he’s behaving around the team. A bit off your food, old mate? But I wonder how Warner feels, deep down, about this new Australian environment. I wonder if he feels restrained, muzzled, unable to let rip with his natural mongrel instincts. It’s become a no-no for Australian players to act like Warner has done in the past. Which must be a bit of a nightmare for Warner himself.

Post-sandpaper, Australia’s players have been told to ditch the aggro. The chief aggro artist? Warner. You have to mind your Ps and Qs these days, help old ladies across the street, keep the salt out of the sledges and resist the temptation to get completely down and dirty. Which means Warner is basically no longer allowed to be who he used to be on a cricket field. This may be a good thing for the image of Australian cricket but it appears to be a doubt-producing, confidence-shaking, poking-around-outside-off-stump, career-threatening development for Warner. It’s not just that his runs have dried up.

England fast bowler Stuart Broad has dismissed Warner five times this series Picture: AP

His body language is different, more subdued, more introverted. A loud mouth has been told to shoosh. A mischievous fellow has been ordered to mind his manners. He’s slogged T20 and ODI hundreds since Cape Town but Test cricket is a more searching examination of one’s psyche. I wonder if he feels like his true self on a cricket field. If not, he’s in strife. Successful athletes use their sports as vehicles for self-expression. They can be knock-kneed, cross-eyed, stuttering clutz’s in real life but when they’re on a field, court, swimming pool or whatever the case may be, they feel like the person they are meant to be. Case in point? Ian Thorpe. He’s been lucky to go five minutes without tripping on a piece of furniture, or banging his head on a door frame, around the time of the Sydney Olympics. But in the pool, on golden pond, he’s felt totally and comfortably at ease.

Warner’s failures in red-ball cricket are adding up. We keep assuming he’ll come good and crack a hundred before lunch. Instead he’s heaping failure upon failure and it’s killing Australia. Give it a whack? He’s out of whack. His contributions to the knife-edge series have been 2, 8, 3, 5, 61, 0, 0. That’s diabolical. Australia’s opening partnerships have been 2, 13, 11, 13, 12, 10 and 1. Just as bad. They keep getting out of jail, just, through middle-order rescue missions, but the tourists have been under the pump early in every dig. He’s too good a player to be anyone’s bunny, but he’s facing Stuart Broad like he’s been hypnotised. You’re getting sleepy …

Give him a license to tonk. To swing for the fences. May as well. Warner has always been aggressive in the field, with body language and tongue, then taken the same mindset into his batting. The mode of operation has been one and the same. Now he’s obliged to temper his whole routine. He’s been all-or-nothing before sandpapergate, now he has to turn it on and off. He’s required to act like a choir boy, then bat with fire and brimstone. Tone down his verbals. Turn the other cheek. Put a sock in it. Leave behind the sand paper and everything it stands for. That’s nice. But it doesn’t suit Warner. He doesn’t look comfortable in his own skin. Apprehension has never been part of his makeup. He’s being a good boy in Test cricket, which may be the worst thing for him.

Steve Smith has returned to Test cricket with a bang Picture: Getty Images

Bet your life on the fact he wants to get stuck in. With tongue, with bat. His whole career — the Test batting average has dived to 46 — been built around the extroverted, fearless and unfiltered on-field persona. His fielding attitude has flowed into his batting. His batting attitude has flowed into his fielding. The real Warner hasn’t been sighted this series. His half-century has been gallant and iron-fisted, but even that hasn’t been his normal self. Will the real Warner stand up? Perhaps deep down, he feels as though that person is no longer allowed to. He’s in a team trying to rid itself of the shame of the sandpaper plot. The plot he’s come up with. Is he still trying to shake off the shame? Racked by guilt? Is Steve Smith making a seamless return because he hasn’t really done too much wrong in Cape Town? Because he has less on his conscience? If Warner’s failures continue, the old-fashioned looks increasingly uncomfortable in this new-look Australian side. He’s been the chief culprit in the cheating scandal. How do you move on from a Warner-created drama when Warner is still involved? He looks like someone trying to please others, behaving and batting sensibly. Which may not be pleasing, nor remotely beneficial, to himself.