Dave Warner is rocks and diamonds. In attitude and results. It will ever be thus. Spare me the gibberish about sacking him from Australia’s T20 side at the World Cup.
That is talking for talking’s sake. The height of nonsense.
Warner’s golden duck in the World Cup warm-up game against New Zealand was approximately 20 balls and 30 runs short of a decent hit. And yet first-ball noughts reveal naught about form. He wasn’t around long enough to demonstrate if he’s batting like The Don or a drunk ahead of Saturday night’s confrontation with his snarling, sneering and sledging old mates from South Africa.
Warner versus the Proteas. Ding, ding – Michael Buffer should introduce it. Warner will give as many snarls, sneers and sledges as he gets.
He’ll crack a gloriously devilish smile if things really heat up. He’ll be burning with enough furious ambition to swap his batting gloves for something more akin to what Tim Tszyu likes to wear in a career now seemingly restricted to bouts at Newcastle Entertainment Centre.
Warner is at his best in a fight, and he’s found a few. Versus his run out outs. Versus the mob that succeeding in causing his brain explosion at Cape Town.
He doesn’t hate the memory ball-tampering scandal as much as the memory of how his missus was dragged into it.
Warner was lippy and grinning like a madman before he even took guard against the Kiwis on Tuesday. He walked briskly to the crease while conversing with Kiwi players who were undoubtedly giving him a gob-full.
They were probably offering guidance not dissimilar to Merv Hughes’s famous famously helpful remarks to Robin Smith: “Mate, if you turn the bat over, you’ll find instructions on the back.”
Warner charged and flashed at a widish one from Tim Southee. He succeeding only in getting a thick edge that was taken in spectacular fashion in the cordon by Martin Guptill.
Already a couple of steps down the track, Warner could simply keep on skipping straight back to the pavilion from whence he had come. Fast game’s a good game.
He laughed ruefully, bringing to mind the time ex-NRL coach Phil Economidis valiantly denied his side was in a slump by saying, “We’re on the CREST of a slump.”
Drop Warner? Pick him first and foremost. The best T20 sides are full of berko players who can single-handedly win matches when they come off. The Glenn Maxwells and Mitch Marshes and Warners – you just keep picking ‘em, no matter what.
Batters, and perhaps humans, don’t come much more berko than Warner. Rocks-and-diamonds players are far from liabilities in the rocks-and-diamonds format.
This is no ordinary player we’re talking about. Warner began his international T20 career by belting Dale Steyn into the crowd at the MCG and even now, when push comes to shove in the pressure-cooker of a World Cup T20 match against South Africa, which looks as evenly matched as red versus black at roulette, you’d rather have Warner strutting out in attack dog mode, yapping away, swinging for the fences, batting like dot balls are the enemy.
You either stick with Warner or pick Alyssa Healy. It seems she’s unavailable.
Warner’s dumping from Sunrisers Hyderabad at the IPL must have involved personality clashes. Fair enough that he lost the captaincy to a stellar skipper like Kane Williamson but when he was torpedoed as opening batter, he was coming off scores of 54 (37 balls), 36 (34), 37 (37), six (eight) and 57 (55).
He wasn’t really struggling for form when he was dropped. He’s struggled since being dropped, a decision that left him “shocked and devastated.”
Four months after Sunrisers shafted him, he had to return to the franchise for the rest of the IPL. On September 22, he poked at a full delivery and spooned a catch to cover, departing for a third-ball duck. The stump microphone picked his reaction. Ohhhhh! On September 25, he lashed at a full ball and nicked it to the wicketkeeper. Two runs from three balls. He said it again. Ohhhhh!
Such is the torment of batting. One false shot takes you from the field of play. No other sport is so cruelly dismissive.
A nervous golfer hooks his opening tee shot out of bounds. He gets to grab another ball and no matter, he gets to play the full 18 holes.
A tennis player hits a fault and it doesn’t matter. He gets another serve. If that one’s a fault, it still doesn’t matter. He gets to play the next point. Just about every other sport gives its players an extended time or scoring system to prove their worth. Not batting.
The South Africans will give it to Warner more than any other player on Saturday night. Partly because they fear him more than the rest.
His blood will be boiling about his run of outs, no doubts, but sooner or later he’ll hit a purple patch. He’s too good not to. A few years ago he had an international T20 blue period. Five single-figure scores in succession. Eight, two, four, six, two. There was talk for talk’s sake of him being out of sorts and sackable. He went on a tear: 59, 25, 100no, 60no, 57no, two not out, 20, 48no, four, 67no, 57 and 58.
Rocks and diamonds. Accept them both, especially in T20.
I suspect Warner’s recent disasters make him even more dangerous at the Cup. He has a point to prove. His best celebrations are the get-that-up-ya ones. He had his chest out against the Kiwis.
His voice was in full working order. When he charged at Southee, that looked to me like a man charging into a World Cup. Recent rocky performances don’t change one fact about the bloke. There’s still a diamond or two in him.
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