David Warner rises to day of emotion with blazing, beautiful hundred
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Version 0 of 1. At 10 minutes to eleven, Varun Aaron, the Indian quick who put Stuart Broad in hospital four months ago, unleashed a bouncer that fizzed past a ducking, swaying David Warner. The crowd gasped, then cheered and applauded. It was the 19th ball of the Test match. One small step for a cricketer, one giant leap for cricket. About 15 minutes later, 800 or so miles east of Adelaide at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Sean Abbott, the young man whose bouncer felled Phillip Hughes a fortnight ago, bowled a short ball at Queensland’s Joe Burns in a Sheffield Shield match. “Yes, Abba!” came the cry from the New South Wales slip fielders. There were more bouncers from the Indians in Adelaide and each was cheered. This was what Ricky Ponting meant in his pre-match newspaper column about clearing the air and “announcing that the game was on”. The air, whether cleared or not, was hot and heavy. It was the warmest Adelaide day since the teams rolled into town last week. A good toss to win you’d have thought in normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances and who knew how batsmen might react to the emotional surge of the pre-match rituals. Michael Clarke decided to bat first anyway. Big cheers. Half an hour later the players from both sides emerged, wearing black armbands, and lined up behind their respective flags and a giant 408 painted on the outfield. Immediately to the right of the players’ entrance to the field were placed all the Australian players’ bats, with baggy green caps perched atop the handles. The unmistakable voice of Richie Benaud, the sound of Australian summer, filled the Adelaide Oval while footage of Hughes’s career appeared on the big screen. Just like his commentary, Benaud’s words were apposite and sparing. “RIP, son,” closed his recorded address, which led into 63 seconds of applause, followed swiftly by Advance Australia Fair. It was a moment. David Warner raced out on to the oval to a huge roar, his pigeon-toed partner Chris Rogers pacing solemnly in his wake, much as their opening stand turned out. Rogers scratched around for nine in 40 minutes while Warner smashed three fours off the second over of the innings and never looked back until he was caught on the deep mid-wicket boundary four hours later. This was the guy who had to withdraw from Australia’s first training session last Friday. The morning before the Test he walked laps of the Adelaide Oval with the team psychologist, Michael Lloyd. Warner was the one who, it was believed, was struggling the most to ready himself for a return to action. He was the one, we assumed, that Shane Watson was referring to when he said “some guys have been more affected than others”. If any Australian player was likely to be overcharged on this extraordinary occasion, it was surely Warner. “It was quite tough early on with the 63 seconds applause,” Warner said later. “The national anthem set me off a little bit inside. Then coming out and playing the way I did there was a lot of adrenaline there and I had to really bring it back after I got going.” Yet India’s bowling barely tested him. At one point when Aaron bowled a bouncer so out of reach it was called a wide, Warner gave the bowler a withering look that might have been indicative of the more regular aggression that Australian players talk about so readily. But for the rest of Warner’s immense innings, the emotional current running through him crackled with only positive energy. It was quite obvious what, or who, was driving him on. What was less apparent was just how he was just how he was managing to do it. Cricket is a numerologist’s fantasy at the most normal of times but this day’s play presented a series of milestones and statistical quirks to which the audience reacted with spontaneous outpouring every time. An hour and a quarter into the day Warner reached 50 and looked skywards, while acknowledging the first wave of warmth rolling down from the stands. On 61, he reached down the pitch to sweep the debutant leg-spinner Karn Sharma to deep square leg. The scampered two runs took him to the newly symbolic score of 63, the total Hughes had reached a fortnight ago. The crowd rose and Warner punched the blade of his bat towards the sky. By this point he had been joined by the captain Michael Clarke, whose entrance was greeted by the sort of ovation normally reserved for a match-winning hundred. While Warner continued to blaze, Clarke felt his way in with all the uncertainty of a man who had faced only 20 deliveries in six weeks. Warner was on 98 when he pulled Aaron to deep mid-wicket for a single and breathed deeply once at the non-striker’s end. Four balls later he eased Aaron into the offside and completed his hundredth run. He raised his arms, looked up, kissed the badge on his green helmet and leaped in the air. As he turned round, he was greeted mid-pitch by Clarke and he buried his head in the captain’s shoulder. “I did have a tear in my eye,” Warner said. “However long my career goes it’s going to be a special moment.” This was starting to feel like scripted drama. Short of a Clarke hundred, this bold, beautiful hundred from Warner, his fifth Test century this year, was the ultimate crowd-pleasing resolution. There would be no Clarke hundred, at least not today. He’d reached 60 when his back twinged as he tried to play a pull shot. Three more runs maybe, just for yet another excruciatingly apposite numeric detail? Not to be. Real life kicked in. Down on to his belly he went, trying to stretch out his endlessly troublesome back. But after a few minutes he was led from the field by the physio Alex Kontouris and the doctor Peter Bruckner. This atmosphere of eulogy and ecstasy was punctured and the day started to peter out. Yet when Steve Smith, a captain in waiting, reached 63, it all started again. The “63 not out” posters given out by the local newspaper and the applause rang out again round the 25,000 crowd. Is 63 the new 50? In Australia maybe it is. Some on Twitter are even referring to the score being a “Hughesy”. Over on the hill, below the scoreboard, a few beery punters urged a female television reporter in their midst to reveal herself. A more sober spectator turned to his mate and said wryly: “Nothin’ changes.” And in a sense he’s right. If the past fortnight had never happened, this is the sort of day’s play we could have expected. India, appalling overseas, go through the motions and are put to the sword by David Warner and others. The sun beats down and the Aussies are three and hundred plenty for six. The flurry of late wickets, Clarke’s injury and embarrassing spectators notwithstanding, Australian cricket was smiling again. |