SIMON HUGHES: You want that confrontational nature, that combustibility, that edge. Sometimes players like David Warner might overstep the line. Fine them. Don’t ban them. They are our only saviours
We should not be castigating David Warner. We should be celebrating his unbridled passion on the field. It is one of the best advertisements for Test cricket there is.
He cares. He shows emotion. It actually matters to him and it makes for compelling viewing. Yes, he may sometimes overstep the mark and prick opponents’ more sensitive, personal areas. That is disrespectful and he has to expect some comeback. But it’s the Aussie way. (The first time I went in to bat in club cricket in Sydney, in a pre-season ‘friendly’ the wicketkeeper whispered to me that I was ‘as welcome out there as a t**d in a swimming pool.’)
Warner could help save Test cricket and yet he is now on three demerit points after his tunnel confrontation with Quinton de Kock, and one point away from a suspension. One hopes it won’t inhibit him. Warner is a livewire, bristling with electricity. The play hums and throbs when he’s involved.
Take the run out of AB de Villiers in South Africa’s second innings in Durban. There was barely anyone in the ground. Zero atmosphere. The batsman Aiden Markham pushed a nondescript delivery from Nathan Lyon to square leg and thought about a run.
De Villiers was already haring up the pitch. Warner, ever alert at backward square leg, scooted to his left, pounced on the ball and quickly realising that Markham had elected not to run, instantly altered his throw, fizzing it to the bowler’s end where Lyon whipped off the bails ahead of De Villiers' stumbling about-turn and despairing dive. Warner double-fist pumped the air and let out a primeval roar as he was engulfed by team-mates.
It was as good a moment as you’d get in any Hollywood movie – after 1,000 takes. The speed, the athleticism, the fatal hesitation, a great batsman prostrate on the ground run out without scoring, Warner’s face purple in vehement celebration, his eyes blazing, the veins protruding in his neck. Ridley Scott never got the same reaction out of Russell Crowe in Gladiator.
There was an earlier moment when the ball was tickled to short fine leg and Warner scooped one handed and missed the ball on Durban’s slightly rutted outfield.
He turned to retrieve the ball, hurled it back to the wicketkeeper and kicked the ground in furious frustration at the gift of a single. It is uplifting to see a man who emerged through T20 cricket and has earned such riches from it, so engaged in a sparsely attended Test match.
As we all grasp and search for innovative ways to preserve Test cricket from the unturnable tide of T20, there it is staring us in the face.
The passion and commitment of the likes of Warner, of Virat Kohli, of Ben Stokes, Kagiso Rabada or indeed De Villiers himself, batting with over-my-dead-body defiance in the first innings of the Durban Test. These men hurl themselves into the Test fray with untrammelled conviction and intensity, exude a bristling presence, hail success with euphoria bordering on hysteria, are inconsolable in failure.
You do not get this level of feeling in one-day cricket. Perhaps it is appropriate that they play with a white ball. The cricket is largely colourless, devoid of real emotion. Exciting in a macho, who-can-hit-the-biggest-six kind of way, occasionally ending in a dramatic finish, but all quite passionless and clinical.
David Warner and Quinton de Kock were involved in a spat in Durban
Bowlers smile resignedly when they are launched out of the ground, chuckling at the inevitability rather than kicking the ground in frustration. Batsmen shrug nonchalantly when an attempted ‘ramp’ ends up in the wicketkeeper’s gloves. It is just a cricketing exhibition. It doesn’t really matter (unless it's a cup final.) No one will remember it for long after they’ve thrown away the chip paper on the way home.
At a Cricketer Magazine event last night, Mike Brearley and I considered various possible solutions to Test cricket’s encroaching crisis. Four-day Tests, day-night Tests, a world Test championship, pitches that don't favour the home side, better grounds, easier access to tickets. All that. But in the end we realised that Test cricket’s USP is the duels between the best players, the drama that enfolds and the passion they cannot contain.
"The ICC should ensure the likes of De Villiers, Kohli, Gayle are available at all times to play Test matches," Brearley said.
"They should be persuaded to play Tests above all else and paid to advertise it too."
I would add Warner and Stokes to that list. You want that confrontational nature, that combustibility, that edge. Sometimes they might overstep the line. Fine them. Don’t ban them. They are our only saviours.
Posted by Andy Peters on 11/03/2018 at 22:14
Of course we want to see passionate, committed cricketers and thus things wil flare up occasionally in the heat of the moment. But a great deal of what Warner and some others (particularly Australian) do is calculated rather than passionate. Ref: Aussie players running up to the stumps shouting the names of companies competing with the local sponsors in an attempt to get stump mikes turned off, this after, again, running up to the stumps during the Brisbane Ashes Test to ensure comments about the Jonny Bairstow "head butt" were picked up by the media. Both examples are calculated, pre-meditated acts.
Posted by Gordon Conolly on 11/03/2018 at 05:21
Simon, despite the first response from Mr Hedgecock to your article, I agree with your commentary on the little Dynamo that is David Warner. Times have changed Murray, and yet, for the most part, cricket has moved with them. Indeed it is the reason that this game played over days way back in the 19th century, still survives much as it was always. Simon your article highlights why it is so and will continue to be so despite the fast digital age in which we live. It is because Test Cricket provides a unique combination of drama, a wide variety of skills and strategies that both team and individuals must display, because of the demands ofTest Cricket. Without the necessary passion, skills and varied abilities Test Cricket requires ( and has always demanded) it will undoubtedly be at risk. We must never forget that now the TEST Matches thrive because it is brought directly into our homes by TV, and conveniently. This access allows one to observe the passion of the players, plus the incredible skills of bowlers of all types, and of course the variety of ways batsmen respond. However when we "dull down" the game by contriving results such as through home side pitch preparation to suit only one team, or requiring players to be passionless, subduing their spontaneity- we detract from the competition and its appeal., Both Captains of Australia and South Africa happily I say, have recently stated- they enjoy that
Posted by Steve Kirk on 09/03/2018 at 16:28
So if this article is right how would you define an unpleasant thug ?
Posted by Murray Hedgcock on 09/03/2018 at 14:06
Simon Hughes played cricket in the proper fashion - combative but sporting. It is all the more disappointing to see him champion the thug David Warner. If anything would ever make me renounce life-long loyalty to Australian cricket, then it will be the appalling behaviour of such as Warner, and the leeway, indeed encouragement, given him by many in authority, notably coach Lehmann, and the failure of umpires and match referees to do their job. If the only way to "save" Test cricket is to encourage such behaviour, then with great sadness, I hope that game dies.
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