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Sehwag predicted Warner's amazing rise

Roar Guru
28th November, 2011
2

David Warner says he has Greg Chappell to thank for his transformation from Twenty20 rock star to Test opener, but it’s one Indian master blaster Virender Sehwag saw coming two years earlier.

Even before Warner was considered a first-class option for NSW in 2009, Sehwag told the big-hitting white-ball specialist he’d be a wonderful Test batsman.

Now the 25-year-old will make his Test debut in just his 12th first-class match when Australia meet New Zealand on Thursday on what’s tipped to be a juicy Gabba wicket.

Even six months ago, the prospect of Warner combating the new ball in Brisbane would have been nigh-on unthinkable for traditional cricket fans.

But Warner has since prospered from the advice of Chappell to bat for marathon periods in the nets, and also applied the practicality of Sehwag’s thinking.

The most explosive opener in Test history, Sehwag tipped the Sydney left-hander’s rise when they first teamed together for the Delhi Daredevils in the 2009 Indian Premier League.

“Sehwag watched me a couple of times in the nets. He said to me ‘you’ll be a better Test cricketer than you are a Twenty20 player’ and I looked around to him and said ‘I haven’t even played a first-class game yet’,” Warner said on Monday.

“But he said ‘all the fielders are around the bat. The ball is there in your zone and you’re going to hit it. You will have ample opportunity to score runs; you still have to respect the good ball but you have to punish the ball you are always going to punish’.

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“He thinks it’s exactly like one-day cricket or Twenty20 cricket with your zones and he’s still going to back himself to hit his areas and that’s what he does.”

Sehwag’s approach has worked for 92 Tests, averaging a superb 52.16 and scoring with a strike-rate of 82, and Warner is hoping to emulate his deeds.

Warner’s remarkable turnaround was sparked by an eight-hour 211 for Australia A against Zimbabwe in July after an early-tour chat with Chappell in the nets in Harare.

The former Australian captain and selector simply asked him how long he’d bat and what his approach was.

When Warner said he’d bat for 20 minutes in total and play himself in, Chappell asked why he didn’t bat for as long as he wanted to in a match.

So he did – for two and three hours at a time.

“It actually made sense to me,” Warner said.

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“If you are going to score hundreds, you have to have time to put in and that’s what I did.

“It’s amazing how in 18 months, how much everything can turn around.”

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