Alongside a small, appreciative and anything but hostile gathering in Perth, David Warner’s early drag onto the stumps compelled him to spend much of the opening day of the Test summer as a spectator.
That, unfortunately, has been increasingly Warner’s lot over the past two years, which constitute the poorest of his long and otherwise prolific Test career.
David Warner’s slim Test returns for 2022 continued.Credit:Getty Images
After cobbling 307 runs at 38.37 in five Tests in 2021, Warner’s returns this year have slipped to 271 at 20.84 in seven matches plus the first innings of this series, continuing a downward trend that will increasingly be on the mind of both the opener and the selectors.
Before this match, Warner’s opening partner Usman Khawaja acknowledged the fact that Test cricket does have a cumulative, grinding effect on players the more they play without a break – noting and joking that despite making his debut before Warner, he had played roughly half as many matches.
“I debuted before David Warner, he’s played double the amount of Test matches – bloody selectors keep dropping me!” Khawaja laughed.
Half-century: Usman Khawaja’s impressive form continued in Perth.Credit:Getty Images
“It has left me [fresher]. To some extent there is a grind of Test cricket and he’s played 100 Test matches and countless one-dayers and he’s been on the grind for a long time, where I’ve been out of the grind for a little bit.
“I probably got a bit of a refresher the last couple of years when I was out. So it makes me a little bit more refreshed mentally.”
That refreshment has meant that Khawaja, after looking for all the world to have been finished as a Test player after being dropped during the 2019 Ashes tour, is putting together the year of his life in batting terms.
Scores of 137, 101*, 6, 11, 97, 160, 44*, 91, 104*, 71, 0*, 29 and 65 in Perth have underlined a happy coalescence between technical soundness, mental maturity and ambition to prove himself as a Test batter in the very top rank.
For Warner, that battle has already been won via a succession of head-turning performances over more than a decade, in which he succeeded Virender Sehwag as world cricket’s most destructive Test opener. Aside from the lure of tours to India and England next year, neither of which have been fertile countries for him, Warner has little left to prove as a batter.
“It’s a daunting one, I knew it was always going to come,” Warner has said of the schedule.
“It’s going to be a challenge in itself, three kids and my wife. It’s going to be tough, but from now I’ll take each series as it comes. You’ve got to keep scoring runs, otherwise you people will start talking about retirement.
“Looking ahead, I think winning in India is key. We’ve had a lot of series over there and we haven’t won too many Test matches. England is another one we retained last time but to win over there would be awesome, and you’ve got the World Test Championship as well.
