David Warner: A man proving his detractors wrong in Test cricket

David Warner en route to his 17^th century, with a chancy 144 off 143 balls, became the 6^th fastest Australian batsman to 5000 test runs. This century has capped off what has been a very strange year for the explosive southpaw, ascending into the upper echelon of the ODI greats with a mind-blowing 7 centuries from his 23 ODIs in 2016, but having one of his poorest numbers with the red cherry.

Coming into the Boxing Day test, his average was a shy 24.22 at the MCG, and he played an innings which was befitting of the strange 2016 Warner’s been having. He edged, he missed, got bowled off a Wahab Riaz no ball, hit uppish drives that missed the fielders, but he stuck on; sprinting, cutting, slashing and driving his way to maybe not one of his most fluent innings, but a strangely memorable one nevertheless.

With this century, he has a hundred in each of Australia’s 6 major venues, something his No. 1 ranked captain is yet to achieve.

Warner was the first Australian cricketer in 132 years to be selected for a national team in any format without experience in first-class cricket when he made his T20 debut against South Africa on January 11^th 2009. He blazed his way to 89 off 43 deliveries. He was considered a T20 specialist, a good basher of the cricket ball, but not many would have expected him to grow as he did in test cricket.

"When he first started, and it seems like just a few years ago, he was just a T20 basher of the ball. And he was very good at it, but he's been able to learn quickly about how to transform his technique to be a good Test player. Even when he had off-field problems, he was smart enough and quick enough to learn what he needed to do to have consistent success on the field,” is what former Australia stalwart Michael Hussey had to say in his praise of Warner, after the Pocket dynamo reached the 5000 run mark in an innings fewer than the great Ricky Ponting.

A good Test cricketer can always seamlessly transition into the shorter format, but the other way round is a very rare phenomenon, and that is what makes David Warner an exception. His playing style is as dashing as a Jane Austen hero, and he takes on the bowlers without a care for their reputations.

Not the usual ingredients for a Test batsman, but the 30-year-old’s 5093 runs in just 59 tests, with an average closing in on 50, are phenomenal numbers for a Test cricket opener. Add a strike rate close to 80 to the mix, and purists will run amuck searching for the rule books.

When he went on to make his Test debut in 2011 against the Kiwis, following an injury to Shane Watson, there were quite a few raised eyebrows. Here was a man, fast-tracked to international cricket with barely any first-class cricket experience; surely his game is not tight enough for the rigours of international test cricket? B

But in only his second Test, he went on to do something many former Australians greats couldn’t do across their career; he hit 123 not out, carrying his bat through the fourth innings in a thrilling contest against the kiwis.

Warmer has become one of the most feared opening batsmen in cricket

Warner is only the third batsman in the history of Test cricket to score centuries in both innings of a Test match thrice, after Sunil Gavaskar and Ricky Ponting. He is only the second opener, after Gavaskar, to score three consecutive Test hundreds twice in his career, and the only Australian since Adam Gilchrist to score three consecutive hundreds, a feat Warner had done twice in just 13 months. The numbers are even more staggering considering he is just in his 6^th year of test cricket.

Virender Sehwag is hugely credited by Warner for giving him the self-belief to be a test cricketer. Sehwag said, “You’ll be a much better Test cricketer than you are a T20 player.” The Nawab of Najafgarh went on to explain, "All the fielders are around the bat. If the ball is there in your zone, you're still going to hit it. You're going to have ample opportunities to score runs. You've always got to respect the good ball, but you've got to punish the ball you always punish."

The Australian took Sehwag's words to heart, and was able to make his Test debut about two years later. And there has been no looking back since.

Most people sing praises of the ‘Fab 4’, constituting of Kohli, Root, Smith, and Williamson. But there are not too many players of Warner’s calibre that can take away the game from the opposition based on the duration they stay, and the consistency he has brought to the table of late has made him a true force to reckon with. Gone are the times when bowlers sniffed a cheap wicket when Warner walked in, gone are the times his off-field antics would hog all the attention.

The Australian vice-captain is a run hungry beast, who has adapted his technique to become one of the best openers, if not the best presently.