Warner slump raising eyebrows
DAVID Warner was the only member of the Australian top seven batsmen who didn’t have a net session the day before the fourth Test.
Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith were the last to leave, along with captain Tim Paine. It was an optional training day and, despite a run of five single-figure scores in six innings, Warner, who doesn’t normally bat the day before a match, decided he didn’t need the extra hit.
The theme is one that has created some mutterings about the one-time star opener. Warner’s habits haven’t changed at any stage throughout the Ashes. It’s like the 32year-old, back in Test cricket for the first time since his ban for the ball-tampering incident, hasn’t acknowledged that a lot changed during his 12 months off.
He’s a year older for one, and batting has become much harder for all but Steve Smith.
And while some want to point to a few knocks in Sydney grade cricket last summer, Warner hadn’t faced any serious red ball competition for 15 months before the Ashes began. That red ball in use is the Dukes too, one Warner has had troubles against before.
He’d never scored a century in England before the series began, in 15 innings, and in five of those efforts he didn’t reach 10. After six failures in seven innings this series, including back-to-back ducks, his batting average in England has dropped to 28.86.
Warner doesn’t bat well in England but apparently doesn’t think he needs to do much about it.
At least he showed some emotion after his second ball duck at Old Trafford. When he was loitering in the bar of the team hotel the night before the start of the Test, having, as we mentioned, not trained, eyebrows were raised.
His family is in Manchester too, albeit in a different hotel, with the final allocated partner period set for the last Test in London. His wife, Candice, gave birth to their third child, in England, in July, so travel back to Australia with a newborn could be tough.