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Opinion
Steve Waugh was accused of grandstanding and being selfish when he proclaimed he was retiring from Test cricket early in the summer of 2003/04.
These accusations were levelled at a record-breaking run-getter who amassed 888 runs at 80.72 in his final 12 Tests after supposedly being past his use-by date in the Ashes a year earlier.
If that was supposedly the case 20 years ago, how would you describe the current situation with David Warner?
His belligerent attitude about form slump prompted him to declare before this Ashes series that he wanted to play on until the new year’s Test in Sydney so he could retire on his home ground.
Is this selfishness, ignorance, pigheadedness or a combination of all three?
David Warner departs in Manchester. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“I feel like I am in great touch,” Warner said on the Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast before the fourth Test in Manchester where he once again avoided the selectors’ axe which must be in cased under lock and key with a “only break in case of emergency” plaque.
And in a case of the predictable meshing with the unexpected, Warner’s run of outs continued with a departure for 32, somehow caught by Jonny Bairstow, who displayed the dexterity behind the stumps in the first session at Old Trafford of someone wearing oven mitts rather than wicketkeeping gloves.
Sent in to bat after Ben Stokes won his fourth straight toss, Warner smacked his nemesis Stuart Broad for a boundary from the first ball of the day but nobody thought any tide had turned.
There were glimpses of the Warner of old as he hit another couple of fours but several more where he just looked old as he struggled to get his footwork in place, inside-edging a few diagonal strokes away from the stumps with more luck than certainty.
In the end it was a hint of seam from Chris Woakes which found Warner’s outside edge and as he’s done in 36 of his 41 innings in the past three calendar years, he’s returned to the pavilion without raising his willow for passing 50.
He’s averaging under 28.27 in that timeframe and less than 24 in England.
It’s beyond a joke now that he remains in the team for reasons only known to the selection panel of coach Andrew McDonald, George Bailey and Tony Dodemaide and not divulged with any clarity publicly.
They have failed to pick Australia’s strongest team and botched their duty to provide a viable back-up plan by ignoring Cameron Bancroft’s mountain of Sheffield Shield runs for Western Australia, burning Matt Renshaw in the middle order in India and picking an uninspiring reserve in Harris to put no added pressure on Warner to perform.
He is living the Homer Simpson existence of getting away with a vastly inferior set of expectations while fans are increasingly becoming Frank Grimes, descending into insanity trying to figure out why excuses are incessantly made for Warner’s shortcomings.
His teammates and even the player with most to gain by Warner’s overdue removal, back-up opener Marcus Harris, continue to stick up for the fading star.
Regardless of how this Test plays out or how Warner fares in the second innings, the readymade excuses are already being aired that will keep him in the line-up for the series finale at The Oval.
If the Aussies are victorious then the reason to retain Warner will be that you shouldn’t change a winning combination.
And if they lose and the Ashes are still alive with the series knotted at 2-2, you will hear the logic that it would be too hard to bring Harris or anyone else in at opener for a winner takes all contest.
Warner is going down swinging as he enters the final phase of his career.
Like many athletes who dominated their sport for a long time, he’s finding it hard to realise that his reflexes have slowed and you can understand why it would be so hard to admit you are no longer one of the best of the best.
But if Steve Waugh’s decision to dine out on a soft schedule of the weakened West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (before finishing at home vs India) in the final year of his Test career was supposedly selfish then Warner’s refusal to acknowledge he should quit is a whole different egotistical level entirely.