Cricket: Warner sinks to new low

English crowds have set David Warner up as a target for lampoonery. Photo / AP

To ascribe anti-hero urges to David Warner would be to overestimate his intellectual capacities. There is no evidence that Australia's most troublesome test cricketer is playing the villain deliberately, so we can only see his career as one big diplomatic accident.

Some cartoon rogues go along with a panto script. Hate-figure status offers them something to kick against. Attention seekers are especially inclined to provoke the mob. Others just stumble into ridicule.

Warner, who threw away an Australian review despite clearly edging a Graeme Swann delivery to slip via wicketkeeper Matt Prior, is one of those who considers the sensible course of action for a moment or two and then does the opposite.

English cricket crowds have set him up as a target for lampoonery. They booed him to the crease and jeered him back to the dressing room on a day when Australia declared on 527 for seven. Taking their cue from the football ground up the road, they sang "Who are you?" as he began his 16-minute stay at the crease and "cheerio" as he walked after 10 balls.

The sensible course is not to abuse Australian journalists on Twitter. Warner goes the other way, earning himself a A$5750 fine from Cricket Australia.

The sensible course is to observe Joe Root horsing around with a green and gold wig in a Birmingham bar and pass it off as youthful pluck. Warner goes the other way and punches the cocky Yorkshire cherub.

This "despicable thing", to borrow the hyperbolic phrase used by Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland, brought Warner a suspension until the first Ashes test at Trent Bridge, and a doghouse spell with Australia A in southern Africa.

Under scrutiny, most exiled cricketers would probably cross the road to avoid any further bother while waiting for an Ashes recall. Warner goes the other way and locks verbal horns with Thami Tsolekile, the South Africa A wicketkeeper; news of which is bound to be blown up and held against him.

Then comes the big return. The big man is back in town for the Old Trafford test, with Australia 2-0 down. Out goes Phil Hughes in favour of Root's assailant, who has the "X-factor", according to Australia coach Darren Lehmann.

But Lehmann reckoned without Warner's magnet-and-iron-filings relationship with trouble. With Hughes sacrificed (and doubtless highly delighted by the bad boy's smooth return), Warner commits an act so devoid of reason that Ryan Campbell, the Adam Gilchrist understudy now coaching the Hong Kong national team, calls him a "douche bag" in a tweet and adds: "Sums u [sic] up I'm afraid."

Warner was on five with Australia 365 for five when a Swann delivery clipped the thick edge of his bat, bounced off Prior's knee and nestled in Jonathan Trott's mitt at slip. There could be no doubt that he was out, except that Warner either convinced himself he had struck his pad with the bat or just decided to blow a raspberry at DRS by referring the dismissal for review.

Here Michael Clarke's role is interesting. Warner asked for his captain's opinion and was not discouraged from appealing, if the television pictures are any guide. Result: one of the most frivolous reviews in history ends with confirmation of Swann's fourth wicket in the match - and Australia are out of reviews.

Clarke has no reason to look out for Warner. The Walkabout punch in June is said to have dismayed Australia's captain. No leader of an embattled team is likely to trust a player who tries to banjo an opponent in a bar in the early hours of the morning. Clarke could have overruled Warner's request for a review. Instead he watched him make a fool of himself.

Punching a Yorkshireman might not seem much of a crime at Lancashire's HQ, but the Old Trafford crowd, a boisterous lot, were standing right behind Root. Even old heads could not recall such a hostile reception for a cricketer.

Plainly Lehmann was deceived by Warner's 193 for Australia A in South Africa into thinking he would restore the runs to a fragile line-up. Instead only Peter Siddle and Usman Khawaja scored fewer. The saviour role was performed by Rogers, Clarke and Smith before the tail wagged.

Lehmann's pragmatism in whistling Warner back to the starting side had no effect on the first two days of this match, except in providing the Old Trafford galleries with an appointed dunce to ridicule.

He will not shed the role easily. Only runs and application will allow this 26 year-old to raise the public's view of him. The trouble is: people who keep making bad calls seldom start making lots of good ones.

England were struggling at lunch yesterday as Australia turned the screw after their fulsome batting of the first two days. Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc struck to have England 114 for four at lunch.

That came after Australia strode to 527 for seven declared in their first innings. Captain Michael Clarke made 187, his highest score against England and his top test score overseas, while Brad Haddin (65 not out) and Starc (66 not out) banged away happily to pile on the runs.

England were further demoralised when Harris enticed Trott to nick one into the slips (caught by Clarke) to have Trott, Joe Root and Tim Bresnan all back in the pavilion at 64 for three, with 463 runs just to equal Australia's tally.

England's hopes had rested with skipper Alistair Cooke who was spectacularly caught behind off Starc for 62, leaving Kevin Pietersen (on 32) and Ian Bell leading the remaining resistance. Daily Telegraph