Here it goes. Get off the ground after a final Test innings. Lost in the annoyance of being stuck lbw until more than halfway through, he was apparently remembering why there was so much more applause at that point than a knock of 57 would normally have received. He stands tall, opens his arms to the crowd, and turns to embrace them all, as if he were making a complete circle. Then there are those beautiful post-battle moments on the field, those beautiful moments when the players’ children outnumber the players, little figures rolling on the grass or hiding themselves in sunlit pennants. David Warner occasionally chats with his young daughters and accommodates every interview request; He’s happy to keep talking: he’s retired but he’s never retiring.
A lot of people will be glad to see him go. This attitude is much more widespread than was represented at the media festivities of the last Test series. There are few Australian players who inspire so much hatred in their own country. But there was also a crowd that wanted to have the chance to applaud him for hitting the field; It’s something they had four chances at during the days and sessions of their last match. A large portion of this audience forgave Warner, or at least recognized that the moment was bigger and more specific than a vague and lingering personal feud.
Relating to: We will miss David Warner and his main villain energy. Made cricket feel epic | Barney Ronay
His saga of lost and found baggy green hats felt like a fitting way to start the week. Warner had an insane talent for turning into a story from the very beginning. Even before his national T20 debut in 2009; A wonderkid from nowhere, a real smokey man, the first man since 1877 to play for Australia without a first-class match to his name. Although Greg Chappell’s youth policy had many failures, it boasted unparalleled success. It’s hard to imagine another manager having the courage to push this kid further into the Test team two years later, with his first-class match tally rising to 11.
Before Warner could even play the kind of bump-knock-drop knock he was selected for, scoring 180 against India in Perth, he had already proven his range and value by carrying his bat for 123 on Hobart’s green top. He bowled the second Test as the rest fell around him and New Zealand won by seven runs. He notched an Ashes must-win at Durham in 2013, notched hundreds in two of the three live Tests in the comeback series and notched up a series win with two tons against South Africa in Cape Town the same summer. A special batting genius was achieving great success.
All the while this was accompanied by a distinct lack of genius: the words, the aggression on the pitch, the Touring feud, the character flaws that some praised and others condemned, until it came to a head at Cape Town 2018. Although moralizing about ball tampering is an oddity in a sport that has always featured this trait, it is a misdemeanor rather than a felony offense. Those who still bring up sandpaper every time Warner is mentioned are holding on to something; They have made their dislike of him a part of their identity that they are not willing to give up.
Beyond tampering, Warner was guilty of persuading a naive young teammate to commit the act without the intelligence or panache to conceal it. And again for Cameron Bancroft denying the information while looking at the cameras. While Warner still has never made a forthright statement, his praise last week generally referenced his candor and honesty. Concealment is often more of a nuisance than the crime.
However, you cannot define such a full career with a single episode. Not when it ended with 112 Tests played, 26 hundreds, 22 one-day tons, two World Cups, plus the T20 equivalent and a World Test Championship won. The names with more international centuries make a short, famous roll call: Lara, Jayawardene, Amla, Kallis, Sangakkara, Ponting, Kohli, Tendulkar. Three players have opened more Test runs: Cook, Gavaskar, G Smith. It opens in three international formats: Jayasuriya and Gayle.
During this period he has played in every IPL season since 2009, except for the season during which he was suspended, and currently sits third on the tournament’s all-time runs list with 6,397. He has probably played more senior cricket since his debut than anyone else in the world, barring India’s Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The dedication to physical and mental fitness required to succeed across formats while living outside the hotels and in the center of the spotlight is not something anyone else can fully understand.
For the man who was once a harbinger of the future, it leaves Test cricket something old-fashioned. The pioneer of the T20 era, the IPL emblem, is the person who devoted everything he could to the old style, hardly missing tests due to injuries, never missing them for any reason other than two suspensions, and then not giving up instead of taking to the T20 circuit. After the second ban, he came back with renewed determination, overcoming a torrid 2019 in England that saw him score three Test centuries and win the Allan Border Medal as Australia’s player of the year.
In an environment where match fees are 20k per head and an annual contract could even buy you a house in Sydney, commitment to the test is easier for Australian players. But it was still remarkable that throughout this extensive career, nothing was more important to Warner than the chance to play the longest, most difficult and most grueling format. When it disappeared behind the abundant green sofa, a nationwide search was launched, showing once again how important this cricket is. He continued to make this clear in his retirement talks.
“The top of Australian cricket wants to have this abundance of green,” he said in one. “I want to give a little advice to the youngsters. Keep your dreams, keep believing. This is the ultimate in cricket: Test match cricket. That’s what you want to play for and strive for.”
This was Warner with an eye for bigger things, just as one of the most high-profile players in the country played as a union shop steward in the 2017 industrial dispute and defended the female players and indigenous players that Cricket Australia wanted. to cut a revenue sharing agreement. This was one of his most admirable moments; It was something his critics were unlikely to remember or acknowledge.
After all, facts won’t matter as long as people form their opinions on events or anecdotes. Those close to Warner or who encountered his good side will remember his good humor and generosity. Those who don’t remember will remember his moodiness and ability to spite. The point is that you are allowed to take all of this into account – all the reasons for the criticism, all the counter-arguments – and still enjoy what Warner the cricketer and the Warner persona has to offer to viewers.
He had a troublesome side in its healthier manifestations: an uncanny ability to pump people up, annoy opponents, feign sincerity, tell fake stories at press conferences, confirming, for example, his retirement from one-day cricket in the same breath. He claimed that he will play in the 2025 Champions Cup. There is a lot to be read from Usman Khawaja’s comment that his mother’s childhood nickname for Warner was “devil” in Urdu.
He was, above all, the showman on the field, because that’s what he was: the man who did a backward somersault while backfiring the ball into the Chinnaswamy Stadium roof boards in a World Cup match two months ago, the opener bombing the strike, without consoling a kid in Waca’s second tier with a pair of batting gloves. destroyer first, smoker to start a Test match with a century before lunch and only the fifth to do so, scissoring, occasional right-hander, kamikaze streak between the wickets or in the outfield, 2023′ despite extreme sadistic public attention on his failure te player who returned to England and instead helped set up Australia’s two Ashes-sealing wins.
In summary, it is an image full of chaos, full of clashing colors and strange figures; It’s part Jackson Pollock, part Bayeux tapestry, part LED drone show, and even if the effect of the whole might give you a migraine, there’s no denying it’s there. There was art in its making. A few marginal panels aside, there’s no point in the fact that its creation is coming to an end. There remains a character dressed entirely in white, and he has absolutely no pretense of being an angel. For everyone who follows cricket, it has been a part of our lives for 15 years. This is like admitting that complexity exists and that binaries only work for computers. Some people find it easy to hate Warner, and they’ll tell you so, but for the rest of us it was impossible. Thanks Dave. It was fun.