Warner versus Watson, and the varied shades of grief

As his innings commenced in Sydney, you swore you could hear Shane Watson thinking. Not to imply that his mental machinery is so lumbering as to be audible from the stands, but his desperation to succeed was conveyed in broadcast quality.

Having seen his openers assemble a double-century partnership on a benign pitch on Day 1 of the fourth Test against India, Watson wanted nothing but to stay in. After three early runs from a misfield, he ground his way to 11 from 50 deliveries. He took 65 balls to hit a boundary, and batted from the post-lunch drinks to stumps for 61 runs, 6.5 per cent of them edged from the day’s penultimate ball.

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David Warner’s great blessing is the ability to stop thinking. Again, no jibes about intellect – there’s plenty of neural activity behind that bullish demeanour. But Tuesday morning should have given him cause for concern.

While he had three boundaries from his first 16 balls, they were via a range of nicks that each nearly cost his wicket. For 11 overs he couldn’t time a stroke. But he put all that aside from the first ball of the 12th, crashed through cover for four, and forged on without a backward glance to a 12th Test century.

Both men were on the SCG when Phillip Hughes was killed last November. Both remain deeply affected. They have been impressively candid about the emotional toll, exposing their personal vulnerability to a press and a public that can hardly be counted on for reason or restraint. The professional effect has been markedly different though, as played out through the pair’s divergent fortunes.

Warner’s response has been to come out swinging, playing on instinct and surging adrenaline. On the first morning in Adelaide he batted as though in a dream. Few players have driven so crisply, so early, so often. He made Hayden and Langer look laggards. Cover and point were pinged with second and third boundaries from single overs, hitting the ropes before fielding was even considered. Warner just played, floating in some amniotic zone, a skier careering downhill who has forgotten the concept of speed.

“I was quite emotional at the singing of the anthems, that little tribute there beforehand,” said Warner after his Sydney ton. “I had a minute to myself when I came back off before the beginning of the day, and I had my head in a towel and I had to dig deep and go out there and bat the way I know I can, try to clear my mind.”

Through no fault of his own, Watson can’t find that clarity. “For the first couple of Test matches it was always in the back of my mind because of what I saw and trying to go through it and process what happened that day out here,” he said. He was also hit in the head batting in the nets before the Boxing Day Test, rattling him badly.

The disquiet was reflected on the field. Scores of 14 and 33 as his teammates plundered in Adelaide. 25 and 0 as they gorged in Brisbane. 52 and 17 as they rolled in platters of half-chewed banquet muck in Melbourne. Such is the cult of Watson criticism that his lone half-century was treated as an opportunity lost rather than an achievement gained.

Negativity accrued. “So far in this series I’ve been very disappointed with my output,” said Watson before the fourth Test. “Just being able to contribute to the team and feel like I’m not a passenger. That’s what I think about the most.”

When he came out to bat in Sydney he was still thinking. Don’t get out. Don’t get out. Don’t get out. Never mind that he bowled beautifully in Brisbane and Melbourne for unreflective returns. Never mind the irony that when Australia’s pace attack collapsed with injury, the once-fragile Watson was last man standing.

Never mind Chris Rogers’ support: “We don’t think he’s just a passenger. I know he gets a lot of criticism but he’s still crucial to us… He’s probably overly harsh on himself at times.”

Where Warner transcended worry to become pure action, Watson’s mind hit overdrive.

Each mindset has compounded itself. Warner has had the burden but also the fortune of becoming a public emblem of the game’s grieving. It was he who first reached 63 in the series, drawing a stadium’s warm and spontaneous ovation. It was he who first raised a century, raising his face to the sky in salute, knowing that all eyes were on him and he had to get this right.

He was able to speak emotionally about those moments after play, and what he’d been through in the lead-up.

He had his second Adelaide century for further salutation, then the successful return to Sydney and the scene of this grief to express himself here. It was Warner who bent to the ground on 63 not out and kissed the SCG turf where Hughes fell. Whatever others think of these gestures, he has been able to express his sorrow in ways emotionally important to him.

Watson has not been afforded that chance. Especially for one well versed in self critique, he wouldn’t feel he’d earned it. That fifty in Melbourne was too minor and too far after the fact. Here in Sydney he’ll once more regard anything short of three figures as a failure, and find some way to apologise even if he gets there.

Perhaps he will get there, perhaps not. If he does, it will be in spite of that awkward style, a want so deep that it becomes the obstacle to its own attainment. If he doesn’t, it will be marked down as another classic Watto effort.

Really though, neither his achievements nor Warner’s this series are telling us about cricket. They’re telling us that all ways of mourning are legitimate. That grief follows no pattern. That people respond to trauma in individually detailed ways, sometimes expected, sometimes out of that wide blue sweep of the unknown.

This article was first published on Wisden India