Ashes series: Warner steps out from his own shadows

For three hours on cricket’s grandest day David Warner was front and centre stage.

Cricketing anonymity and David Warner are not natural bed­fellows. Thus far, his notable contributions in the series had been a solitary half-century in the second innings in Brisbane, a spectacular flying catch at leg-slip at the same game and the odd pre-match barb.

For three hours on cricket’s grandest day, though, he was front and centre stage, dominating the action and, occasionally, reaction, which is exactly where his preferences lie.

Warner made his 21st Test hundred, his third against England, and until he entered the 90s, ­England’s attack and the pitch looked very accommodating indeed. When he wasn’t batting, it was a different story, which gave the day a curious, lopsided feel: 102 wicket-less runs came in a first session that Australia dominated, but only 142 runs came in the elongated two sessions thereafter (including just 43 in the middle session), as well as three wickets, which represented an admirable recovery for England after an ominous start.

Despite the plummeting run rate, the cricket was more interesting during the second half of the day because there was a semblance of a contest, although clearly many of the 88,000-strong crowd that drifted away before the close thought otherwise.

The first Mexican wave had come in the 31st over, just after lunch, when the possibility of an England breakthrough had seemed as remote as the Orkney Islands, but some committed seam bowling thereafter, a hint of reverse swing and, Warner and Steve Smith apart, some curiously anxious batting brought a more even balance between bat and ball.

The only rebalancing in the morning was an internal one, ­inside Warner’s mind, as he recommitted to his natural game after three Tests during which ­England’s tactics, based on choking his supply of boundaries by posting men on the square boundaries early on, had frustrated him.

Although he had expressed his pleasure at such tactics (“I feel like I’ve won the battle before they even start bowling,” he had said before this match), when Craig Overton had dismissed him in Perth to a tentative push for a single, England could claim that the ends justified the means.

Here, though, when he crunched the 22nd ball of the match past Stuart Broad for a perfectly driven straight four, his ­attacking instincts ominously ­restored, a different storyline seemed likely. He dominated the opening partnership, his 50 coming in a lickety-split 64 balls with the result that Joe Root constructed some highly intricate off-side fields more redolent of a Sicilian defence in chess. Chasing the ball rarely succeeds, though, and Warner’s occasional miscue through point evaded Root’s machinations.

As Warner received England’s bowling as a child his gifts on Christmas morning — gleefully, appreciatively — Cameron Bancroft must have wished he was batting in private, rather than in front of cricket’s biggest audience, so painful was his progress, so out of synch his game. Whereas the ball pinged from Warner’s blade with a sharp crack, it dribbled from Bancroft’s with a dull thud. He claimed in Brisbane to have the heaviest head in the WA side, and he is falling to the off, and coming across the line of the ball a little.

It can be difficult when your opening partner is batting in ­Elysium and it was to Bancroft’s credit that he didn’t hand in his commission, no matter how badly he was playing, although had ­England posted a close fielder early on to any of the four short balls that had him in a tangle, it would have cut short his misery.

When Chris Woakes pinned him in front just after lunch, ­nobody was unhappy with the outcome, possibly not even Bancroft himself, who declined to review.

Such was the mismatch, Warner was into the 90s by this stage, which is where he remained for 40 minutes, due to a combination of England hiding the ball outside his off-stump and Usman Khawaja’s inability to rotate the strike. Tom Curran, given his cap in the morning by another late replacement to an Ashes tour from Surrey of yesteryear, Bob Willis, had already bowled his first spell in Test cricket and it was when he was recalled for his second, with Warner a single away from his hundred, that the blue touch paper for the day was lit.

Warner had become increasingly fidgety. He attempted to shovel the fourth ball of Curran’s over through mid-wicket to no avail and, repeating the shot next ball, skied a simple catch off a leading edge to Stuart Broad at mid-on, much to Curran’s delight, this being his maiden Test wicket — or so he thought.

Warner stomped off but, having seen the replay that showed Curran’s foot to be over the front line, promptly marched back, tucked the next ball into square-leg, after which he celebrated noisily and let off a torrent of abuse in the direction of whichever fielder was in his vicinity. It was almost simultaneously a beautiful and ugly scene.

Curran thus joined Ben Stokes and Mark Wood as recent mis­creants whose first wickets were cancelled through frontline sloppiness and he did not take a breakthrough all day. He did bowl some hard overs, though, when the ball was soft and the sun high, which is often his role in the Surrey team. He does not lack for variety or willing in this regard, although, like the rest of England’s attack, he is of no great pace.

England’s bowling in general improved throughout the day, the second spells of Broad and Woakes being noticeably better than their first and James Anderson picking up his first wicket — his 100th in Ashes Tests — in his third when Warner edged an outswinger behind. It was in a third spell, either side of tea, that Broad finally broke the most barren patch of his career when Khawaja nibbled tentatively at a good length ball that swung away half a bat’s width.

Like Bancroft, Khawaja had given England confidence with the rustiness of his play, although given the start he profited from, there were fewer excuses in his case, and now Broad was no longer a beggar wandering through a desert-like dry spell, 69 overs between wickets, but England’s second highest wicket-taker again. Thus his next two balls to Shaun Marsh brought raucous appeals for lbws, one reviewed, neither upheld.

One of England’s many problems on this tour has been the ­absence of a spinner who can hold an end and pick up the occasional wicket, and Moeen Ali, having been passed fit to play after taking a knock in the nets the day before, looked no closer to answering the call than he has done all tour.

That he was granted less airtime than Dawid Malan’s leg­spinners spoke volumes about Ali’s current state of confidence and Malan’s potential. He should be encouraged to develop this aspect of his game properly.

Smith has an incredible record at the MCG, out-Donning the Don before the start of play in terms of averages at the ground.

Like Warner, he looked a man apart from the rest of the order, and he eased to a half-century as England’s resilience held, impressively. The last time he was dismissed here was the Boxing Day Test of 2014: since then he has consecutive unbeaten scores of 134, 70, 165 and at the close was unbeaten on 65. Like Warner, he has a penchant for the stage.