The Warner Conundrum

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Starc and Warner Join the Exodus

 

September 2^nd

 

 
[10:00 CEST] Mitchell Starc is the latest bowler to join the exodus back to Australia with back problems, following on Jackson Bird and Steve Smith who has a thigh injury. They join a growing injury list that includes Ryan Harris, James Pattinson and Pat Cummins. The haemorrhaging of fast bowling talent to the physio’s couch has been a feature of recent seasons. Australia are struggling to keep their fast bowlers fit and to get them onto the field of play, which is one of the biggest factors hobbling their progress.

David Warner’s strange summer continues, dropped from Australia’s ODI squad as one of the three players to be trimmed after the T20s. The reason is given as being lack of recent form in ODIs, but that seems odd as he has only played 4 ODIs since the end of the series against Pakistan a year ago tomorrow, one of those innings being a 60 v Sri Lanka. Since his consecutive ODI centuries v Sri Lanka in March 2012 he has only 2x50 in 19 innings, but that is very little different to the 3x50 in the 18 ODIs that preceded them, although that included a two year period out of the side. Although Warner has always been regarded as a specialist in the short formats, 425 of his 1133 runs in ODIs (37.5%) came in one golden run of six matches against India, Sri Lanka and the West indies in a week and a half in late February and early March 2012: if you remove those runs, his average drops to a rather mediocre 22.1 for the rest of his ODI career.

Warner seems to be one of those strange cases who is extremely effective in T20, as his innings against England at Chester-le-Street showed and is fast becoming a vital part of the Test side, but who only obtains sporadic and limited success in ODIs. Australia have an ODI squad full of exciting young talent and David Warner has found himself cast suddenly as yesterday’s wunderkind, behind players such as Aaron Finch who offer potentially greater returns. He now faces another period in the ODI wilderness, trying to get his place back by weight of runs in Australian domestic cricket.