RE: The Ashes 2nd Test - A Preview
Bold post mate
In some ways I'm surprised that the authorities didn't sacrifice Warner. As you say, he didn't have a great reputation within in the dressing, didn't have many friends among opposition sides and had even pissed off the administrators by being one of the chief protagonists in the threat of striking over player contracts. It all suggested that this would be a great chance for the powers that be to get rid of a guy who was causing more problems than he was worth.
I think what changed their minds plain and simple was the horror show in terms of results that followed his and Smith's suspension. In a World Cup and Ashes year could Australian cricket in general afford to be so uncompetitive again?
As far as his recall goes, he won the purple cap in the IPL and throughly deserved his World Cup spot. He then performed very well in that tournament and earned his Test place.
The problem for any cricket board is that if you aren't going to give lucrative central contracts to your top players then they'll just go and play franchise T20 cricket around the world probably for more money. In fact, you could argue that that would have been the easy way out for Warner himself. He knew he was going to cop a load of abuse at home and abroad when he returned to international cricket but he still did it. The fact that he choose to don the baggy green again over sitting around sipping mai tais next to a pool and bashing it around a bit in the IPL or The Mongolian T20 blast or wherever else they play franchise cricket these days has got to be worth something to Australian fans
These are strange times that we live in. An Australian supporting the English cricket team and an Englishman suggesting leniency on David Warner :-)
Good grief. Is it end of days? Is this what the apocalypse looks like?
Thanks for the reminder about his role in the pay dispute. In a sense that's probably as close as he gets to a redeeming quality. When administrators tried to drive a wedge between national and state players, Warner dug in for his lower level comrades to make sure they were looked after as well.
As for deserving a recall, selecting anyone for 50 matches on T20 form is risky, but it paid off. Personally I think CA are sacrificing the One Day Domestic competition for the T20 Big Ba$h League. I think in particular a World Cup summer, more focus needed to be on the 50 over stuff.
While Warmer does have his fans, let's face it when he's in a destructive mood it's impressive to watch, the general public feeling is that Aussie fans would take some more short term pain to leave him out and let him run around the globe playing T20 in tournaments nobody cares about.
I don't think anyone would have worried if Smith got a contract for season 20/21, but this year just feels a bit too soon. Given Australians hold sportspeople to a very high ethical standard (and we're very critical when others get caught cheating), the feeling of being let down by these guys is still raw for a lot of fans.
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