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The concept of redemption is vastly overused by those who comment on sport – and I don’t give this introduction to mitigate employing it myself.
All an athlete has to do is attract some form of criticism, then conjure a good performance.
Forthwith, a bunch of unimaginative media souls will anoint this person as redeemed from the criticisms that the commentators themselves created.
It’s a self-supporting industry, with all the intrinsic substance and value of pre-sliced plastic cheese.
Whatever you may read elsewhere, David Warner’s first Ashes century was not a tale of redemption. He certainly doesn’t think so, and there’s no need to demur.
What Warner did in the second innings of the Brisbane Test was finalise the long process of proving a point, one he’s been working at since the last Ashes in England.
He mostly did this in a stand with his captain Michael Clarke, who to a much lesser extent was proving a point of his own.
Clarke, it must be said, should not have a lot of points to prove. He averages 52.14 from 98 Tests, and betters that average by 10 runs as captain.
The losses incurred by his fickle team can’t really be blamed on him. And yet after Stuart Broad bounced him out in Australia’s first innings here, there was talk of Clarke as vulnerable.
That was six Broad dismissals out of eight, said lovers of selective statistical quotation, omitting things like the score of 187 preceding one such dismissal, or the two not-out innings in the same period.
They said Clarke couldn’t duck, Clarke couldn’t play short balls, Clarke was spooked.
Clarke came out this morning at 75/2. Broad had just been taken off, but immediately came back on. Two wickets had just fallen. The confidence was palpable.
A couple of double-bluff length balls were sent down, preceding the inevitable.
The first bouncer Clarke faced he swatted off his grille through square for four. The next was further to leg side and helped fine for four more.
In the next Broad over, incredibly, England started pushing the field back to give David Warner a single.
One of the best batsmen in world cricket was being manipulated onto strike as though he were Danish Kaneria. Warner cheerfully took the runs, and Clarke found singles of his own.
Broad was taken off, Clarke cruised on to a century with barely a false stroke. All talk of strangleholds dried up like cut grass in the Brisbane sun.
From jinx laid to jinx broken, it has been a short chapter in Clarke’s career.
Warner’s, though, has been a longer mission, since his suspension from the Test side for drunkenly taking a swing at English batsman Joe Root on a poorly conceived night out.
Aside from the fact that Birmingham nightclubs should be vigorously discouraged for any human consumption, Warner was quite fairly criticised.
The English media and fans were annoyed, their Australian counterparts aggrieved. Warner’s home-grown critics saw the episode as representing the recklessness they disliked in his cricket.
Those of more tender constitution thought Warner was disgracing our national name, apparently forgetting that Australia’s most prominent overseas representative is the ten-thousand-limbed mass of fermented humanity attached like a fungal skin infestation to the poorly chosen holiday tattoo of Bali’s surf coast.
Warner knew it, and when he came back into the side for the Manchester Test during the last Ashes, he accepted the role of villain with good grace.
He laughed along with the boos of the crowd. He smiled as they rejoiced at his dismissal for 5. He made 41 second time round as Australia chased a declaration.
He gave a thoroughly disarming press conference where he poked fun at himself, spoke candidly about what had happened, spoke of accepting responsibility and consequences.
He top scored with 71 in the second innings at Durham, taking his side to what should have been a matchwinning position had his teammates not collapsed like a bad sponge.
Then he came home and started scoring centuries at will in the domestic competitions.
The idea that sportsmen can compensate for off-field indiscretions by performing well at their chosen profession is a weird one.
No one forgives you crashing their car on the weekend if you go into the office on Monday and file the hell out of Accounts Payable.
But what Warner has done is cop the various criticisms of him with good grace and an open disposition. He’s copped the criticisms of his game the same way.
The perceptions of Warner as irrational, undisciplined, a slogger brought in because of a dearth of options, no longer stack up.
His fourth Test century was his most complete.
Denied much of the strike, Warner was happy to take 11 overs at the start of the day to move from 45 to 50. He hit less than half his runs in boundaries, at an overall strike rate just on 80. His big shots were the right ones, nothing looked forced.
But neither did his watchful play look forced, as it has in the past: a man trying to disguise himself as a Test batsman by doing a poor impression of Bill Lawry.
He was not even worried in the 90s, just cautious when Jimmy Anderson found some swing.
Yes, Warner said to the crowd today, I belong here. I am a Test batsman. I present to you Exhibit A.
This also proved a point to Australia’s other batsmen about what their side can achieve. Over-reliance on one star is a huge weakness; just recall the price of Brian Lara’s wicket. In Australia’s last three Tests, each of their top five has a century.
There’s increasing hope that Clarke is not a one-man show.
I wrote yesterday that Australia are a poor batting side too often dominated by their English opponents. The first innings showed their ability to crumble when the pressure is on.
This is something that will take a lot of work, it isn’t a trait that will just vanish. But at least today may prove one important step toward something different.
Geoff Lemon is a writer and radio broadcaster. He joined The Roar as an expert columnist in 2010, writes the satirical blog Heathen Scripture, and tweets from @GeoffLemonSport. This article was first published by Wisden India, in a new-founded Ashes partnership.