The build-up to the ongoing first Test between Australia and Pakistan was heavily dominated by a red-hot debate sparked by an explosive column from Mitchell Johnson questioning the logic behind David Warner being given a hero’s farewell despite slump in form.
Warner will be retiring at the end of the ongoing home Test series against Pakistan but Johnson thinks that given the opening batter’s form in the past three years, it would have made more sense to give younger players a chance to get some game time against opponents Australia are expected to prevail over with ease.
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“I think my opinion in this column a couple of weeks ago is still valid. He hadn’t scored runs in about three years apart from the double century last summer,” Johnson wrote in the West Australian.
“Another point made was that a soft summer like this, with Australia expected to comfortably beat Pakistan and the West Indies, was the perfect time to look at blooding some new players into an ageing team.
“They could have given some new guys some really good time out in the middle this summer and backed them in. That’s going to be much harder across the next two summers when India and England visit for five-Test series. It seems they’ve got their own plans in place for selection and how they see things. But they are going to be confronted by a changing of the guard at some point soon,” he added.
Johnson had also written Warner never fully owned his role in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal.
The 37-year-old Warner had brushed aside the criticism and responded with a sparkling hundred on the opening day of the first Test with Johnson watching while fulfilling his commentary duties for Triple M.
Johnson said Warner, his former Australia teammate, may have claimed to be not affected by criticism but it’s something that drives him.
“David Warner’s century on the first day of the Australian Test summer was no great surprise in some ways. There was a big media spotlight on Warner and his form and he seems to be at his most motivated when backed into a corner and he generally saves his best for home soil,” Johnson wrote.
“On day one Warner rode his luck early on — and it could have gone either way — and you take that and he went on to make 164. He did what he was paid to do in the first innings before Saturday’s duck in the second innings. Warner may have denied he cares about criticism of his form, but it definitely does drive him as shown in his performance in the first innings,” he added.
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