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Follow Us“We live for those World Cups.”
For the longest time, Lionel Messi had everything except a World Cup. But one thing remained constant throughout his international career: he lived for the World Cups and most times died by it.
David Warner is no Messi. He’s already won the World Cup (twice) because that is how weird cricket is as a sport. He’s already thrived at the highest level, for three consecutive World Cups now, yet the limelight around him is similar to the players who haven’t won the competition.
For instance, think of building a perfect prototype of an ODI opener. What are some of the elements that you can think of, consistency? That’s where Sachin Tendulkar has been a hallmark in World Cup history.
Then, that bit of aggression puts that opener in an elite category. Someone like maybe Rohit Sharma, whose aggression can sometimes just have a damning influence on the game?
How about an opener who can run hard between the wickets and influence the middle-over phase, someone like Gautam Gambhir? Now, put all of this together. That’s a very rare concoction of a perfect ODI opener.
David Warner is all of that. He’s married consistency with aggression while still having the stamina and endurance to run the hard yards in the middle-overs. Warner is a beast across segments and an underrated World Cup GOAT.
Let me narrate why.
Only five players in ODI World Cup history have five or more centuries. Out of the five, only two players have scored those centuries in less than 30 appearances: Rohit Sharma and Warner.
The 37-year-old Australian opener has hit 37 maximums, breaching the 30-six mark, something only six batters have done in the tournament’s history. Then, he’s also hit 150 fours, a club comprising of Sachin, Rohit and him. Warner has married consistency with aggression. That’s already a hallmark of a great World Cup player.
But add to that the fact that Warner has never been dismissed for a duck, and there is an all-time World Cup GOAT right here, RIGHT NOW!
Warner’s name is almost an afterthought when listing the various World Cup GOATs. Warner wasn’t wrong when he said he lives for the World Cups.
Across 159 ODIs that he has played, Warner’s numbers aren’t too eye-pleasing. He averages 45.66, which now is only just above par. He’s scored 22 hundreds, which, again, people won’t really remember much of.
But what is worth a reminder is that Warner’s average shoots up to 59.64 at the World Cup - almost an increase of 31%, numbers that are purely insane because the ODI World Cups are supposed to be this tough competition, where only the best of teams get to play, right?
Warner, a true team man in ODIs
The hallmark of great batters is in the way they mould themselves in their team’s approach, and Warner is a scarce example. In the 2015 ODI World Cup, Australia’s batting depth was all the way till Mitchell Johnson, who was batting at No.9 in the World Cup.
Warner’s role then was to take the attack to the opposition. It was evident in the way he attacked during the first ten overs, striking at 110, only behind Brendon McCullum (201.3), who had a World Cup of a lifetime.
At that tournament, only three openers married consistency with aggression- Martin Guptill, Chris Gayle and David Warner - averaging over 40 while striking at over 100. Given that Australia played most of their games in Australia, barring the clash against New Zealand, the left-hander only hit seven sixes, a figure that now looks like a joke.
Australia was in a very tricky situation in the 2019 edition. They didn’t quite understand the pulse of the format, and the returning Warner and Smith only made the situation around them more hostile bang in the enemy’s territory - England.
The southpaw’s role was well defined: take it deep as an opener. It was a role that he perfectly executed, scoring 647 runs in the tournament, only behind Rohit Sharma (648) for most runs by an opener. It wasn’t just that, his average shot up to 71.89, with three half-centuries and three hundreds across ten innings, almost guaranteeing the national team a safe start.
There, too, Warner scored just eight sixes. It was as if the now 37-year-old could mould himself into any shape the national team wanted. One constant thing was how the southpaw ran between the wickets - with 224 singles, 45 doubles and a whooping seven triples in 2019.
All of this at 33 shows how Warner’s fitness has been one of the underrated aspects of his batting gameplay. Across two World Cups, it remained something that Warner did his best: run between the wickets.
But at the 2023 ODI World Cup, the Paddington-born cricketer has flipped the switch.
Flip the switch in 2023
In 2023, he’s a hard-yard runner and a six-hitting monster - a combination that had never seen the daylight together in his World Cup career. Australia’s evolving ODI template meant that the southpaw had to evolve his ODI gameplay from a slightly conservative approach to a lets-hit-the-deck-so-hard approach, where Hail Mary seemed to be the walking moto.
Quinton de Kock and Rohit have ensured that only a little limelight is on Warner, an opener who has thrived upon combining power-hitting with surgical precision. Interestingly, Warner has hit 20 sixes at this year’s World Cup, five more than the previous two ODI World Cups combined, while maintaining his secret sauce.
Warner has run 24 doubles, 48 fours, and, more importantly, has a dot-ball percentage of just 51.1%, a figure which has only been bested by five openers at this year’s event without any filter. When you put a filter of a minimum of 200 deliveries, Warner’s numbers are only behind one opener: Quinton de Kock, with a dot-ball percentage of 51.1%.
Even in World Cups, Warner’s legacy of maintaining a low dot-ball percentage separates him from the rest of the opening pack. In the competition's history (min 500 deliveries), only Tilakaratne Dilshan, Rohit, and Hashim Amla have a lower dot-ball percentage than Warner’s 51.3%.
Warner’s ability to run like a cheetah while batting or fielding is another asset Australia would dearly miss after this edition. It isn’t just his batting or fielding ability that will be missed, it is also his cricketing IQ, which is at an all-time high.
Be it knowing where the gap exists against Aryan Dutt in the Netherlands clash or be it knowing the size of the boundary against Haris Rauf’s genuine pace, Warner has had a solution ready even before a problem has posed itself.
Even on a six-hitting ground like the Chinnaswamy, Warner was hell-bent on running the twos, stretching the opposition, tiring them out in the first innings.
Warner doesn’t live for the World Cups, World Cups live for Warner.
**(All stats updated till the end of the 2023 ODI World Cup group stage)
