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David Warner has returned to the pavilion with a single-figure score against his name more often than not in 29 trips to the crease in a Test in England.
If that was a tailender, you’d be worried but the fact that he’s an opener with 15 matches in the UK under his belt, should be ringing deafening alarm bells in the ears of the Australian selectors.
But it’s not. And despite four modest scores to open his fourth and final foray into an English Test tour, he will open the batting alongside Usman Khawaja at Lord’s on Wednesday.
Warner scored nine and 36 to start the Ashes at Edgbaston last week after making 43 and one in the World Test Championship final against India at The Oval.
His record in England now stands at 740 runs from 29 innings at 25.51 with no tons in those 15 Tests over the course of a decade and just seven half-centuries.
And with 15 single-figure scores in that record, the odds are that Marnus Labuschagne will be facing the new ball a lot earlier than anyone would like apart from the English seamers.
His record is abysmal if you only factor in his efforts since the 2019 tour – he’s made it to 10 just four times in his most recent 14 knocks in England.
To put it in perspective, Mitchell Starc (six single-figure dismissals in 18 innings) has a statistically much better chance of making it into double figures than Warner in the UK while he’s only marginally better than Pat Cummins (eight of 13) and Nathan Lyon (11 of 20).
Usman Khawaja, who has had his struggles on previous trips to England, has only failed to reach 10 in five of his 16 innings while Travis Head (2 of 12) and Marnus Labuschagne (once in 11 innings after his golden duck at Edgbaston) pretty much always get going.
England’s nemesis, Steve Smith, has been out 10 times in single figures from 34 trips to the crease in the UK (which is still comparatively much less often than Warner) but averages 57.69 after peeling off seven tons and just as many half-centuries.
Warner effectively called the selectors’ bluff recently when he stated he wanted to play out the Ashes and retire after the three-Test home contest against Pakistan at his home ground, the SCG, in January, bypassing the following series against the West Indies.
David Warner is bowled by Stuart Broad. (Photo by David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images)
He’s entitled to have a goal and to put an end date on his career but after just 1003 runs at 28.65 with just one triple-figure score and only four half-centuries from 36 innings in the past three years, there should be more than enough evidence to suggest he’s not doing enough to hold his place in the side.
His footwork was all over the shop as he tried to flay a cover drive in the first innings before dragging the ball onto his stumps while he failed to convert his start in the second dig, nicking an Ollie Robinson delivery from the tried and true method of a right-arm seamer angling into Warner from around the wicket.
Reputation and performances are functions of the past, the present shows Warner is not the best option for a team looking to repel England to prove they are the undisputed champions of the Test cricket world.
While many former sportspeople are reluctant to be brutally honest when they enter the media, particularly when asked to comment on their old teammates, Ed Cowan is not afraid to call it as he sees it.
When asked about his former opening partner on the ABC Grandstand Cricket Podcast, he believes Warner is on his last chance at Lord’s with the Australians set to announce an updated touring party for the final three Tests.
“This is the quirk of sport, if they’d lost I think they would have dropped him,” Cowan said. “I think it’s bought him one more Test match and I think this is now, no hundred, no third Test, irrespective of the result. That’s how it feels.
“The dismissal in the first innings spoke to someone who was not quite sure what was going on. We hear ‘I’m hitting the ball well in the nets’ and we saw glimpses of it in the World Test Championship but ultimately, you’re determined by the runs you score.
“It was an important little 30 in the second innings but if we’re keeping people because they’re scoring 30 we’ve got big issues.”
Warner and the rest of the Australian batters are likely to face slightly tougher conditions at Lord’s than the featherbed that was rolled out at Edgbaston.
The pitch will get another mow before game day but it’s looking much more like a traditional English strip than the straw-coloured Birmingham blancmange.
Predicted cloudy weather is likely to bring swing into the equation more so this time around even if it still turns out to be a flat surface that suits England’s high-octane Bazball batting style.
Stuart Broad, who unsurprisingly dismissed Warner again in Edgbaston to make it 15 times at Test level in 27 matches, wrote in his weekend newspaper column that he was surprised by “the the total absence of reverse swing, despite the dryness of the pitch” while adding “just a hint of that would have been the thing to get us over the line and we were looking for it all the way”.
It’s unlikely any pitch for the rest of this series will be as batting-friendly as Edgbaston so Warner may have already missed his best chance to cash in with a big score to ensure he gets to sign off with an SCG farewell.