Istafa Ali
David Warner, an opener for Australia, is leaving Test cricket this week. He was one of the best openers the world has ever seen, but his involvement in the 2018 ball-tampering incident will always overshadow his accomplishments.
The controversial 37-year-old Australian will play his last Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground against Pakistan. It will be an emotional farewell to a career that started in 2011 when he played against New Zealand in Brisbane.
In 111 Tests, the left-hander has scored 8,695 runs, with 36 half-centuries and 26 centuries. His average is 44.58.
Warner was a huge personality, and he was also one of the best slip fielders in the game, making 89 saves.
“He’s probably our best three-format player ever.” “He will be a loss,” said Andrew McDonald, the coach of Australia, on Saturday.
Since we’ve seen his great worth and what he brings to the table, we’ve kept picking him even though other people have been after him for a while.
“It can be hard to replace someone who is striking at 70, averaging 45, most ever runs as an Australian opener.”
But Warner has made friends along the way. For example, former Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson ripped Warner apart before the Pakistan series. Warner wants to keep playing white-ball cricket.
“Yes, he has a decent overall record and some say is one of our greatest opening bats,” he stated.
“But his batting average in Test cricket over the last three years has been about what a tail-ender would be happy with.”
“It’s the ball-tampering disgrace in South Africa that many will never forget.”
Warner’s bad side showed when he was the main planner of the “sandpaper-gate” scandal in South Africa. This scandal ruined Warner’s image, which was already damaged by a number of scandals.
Cricket Australia banned him for a year along with captain Steve Smith for their part in the third Test mess in Cape Town, where Cameron Bancroft scuffed the ball with sandpaper and then tried to hide the proof down his pants in a crude way.
Warner lost his job as vice-captain and was told he could never lead the team again as part of his sentence. This ended his dream of becoming captain of Australia’s one-day team.
Many people in the game didn’t think Warner’s participation would come as a surprise.
He got in trouble with the law and lost his job in June 2013 for punching England’s Joe Root in a Birmingham bar before the Ashes.
“I feel very bad about what I did. Warner said at the time, “I have let down my teammates, Cricket Australia, the fans, myself, and my family.”
He felt the same way two months before, after getting into a nasty Twitter fight with two Australian reporters.
But the aggressiveness that made him famous never went away.
Warner and Quinton de Kock got into a fight in the first Test in Durban, which happened before the ball-tampering scandal. Warner said that the home wicket-keeper had said “vile and disgusting” things about his wife Candice.
Warner was told to pay 75% of his match fee, and De Kock was told to pay 25%.
Even though there were problems, he was accepted back into the Australia team when his ban ended. He played his first Test match since the ban during the 2019 Ashes series against England.
It was a terrible return. He scored 95 runs in 10 games, which is a very low average, and English fans kept booing him.
That said, the selectors kept trust in him again, and he came back later that year with an unbeaten 335 against Pakistan in Adelaide. Since then, he has been there for them all.
Greg Chappell, who used to lead Australia, said that Warner would “never live down the sandpaper-gate incident.” However, he asked people to forget about it and focus on what Warner had done for the team over the course of more than a decade.
He wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend, “David Warner has been great for Australian cricket, no matter what you think of him.”
“I know how hard it is to do what he has done through 111 Tests, so I hope that David´s harshest critics acknowledge his talent and contribution and forgive his human frailties.”
