Let’s be positive to begin with. Credit where it’s due. Australia did very well to put David Warner and their captain Michael Clarke in front of the media yesterday for a full and frank mea culpa. Get it in the open and get it done with.
Too many sportsmen hide behind Twitter these days for both good and bad pronouncements that cannot be questioned nor contextualised. Take Kevin Pietersen. We are still waiting for an explanation as to what happened between him and Andrew Strauss last year and there seems little chance he will address the wider world ahead of the Ashes on anything other than his own terms.
Don’t hold your breath either for any sightings of Joe Root to tell the media and, by definition, England supporters what happened in the Walkabout Bar even though, as Warner confirmed, he is clearly the innocent party in this spat.
So full marks for openness. But as far as their punishment of Warner is concerned, Australia, seemingly in total disarray with less than a month until the Ashes, could not even get that right. What they have come up with is a sort of halfway house that will not do any good for anyone, let alone the team.
It seems as though the Aussies wanted to take strong action and send home the serial offender who surely went a step too far by punching Root in a Birmingham bar. But they could not quite bring themselves to do it, knowing they would weaken their already struggling side if they took away the potentially destructive batting of Warner.
In banning Warner for the rest of the Champions Trophy and their pre-Ashes warm-up games, Australia have neither been firm in cracking down on indiscipline, nor pragmatic in making sure one of their better batsmen stayed on board.
It is near impossible to see Warner playing at Trent Bridge in the first Test without any practice since he was dismissed, typically, flashing outside off stump against England at Edgbaston on Saturday.
How can Australia throw him in at the deep end when he so clearly needs as much time in the middle against the moving ball as possible if his technique is going to stand up to Jimmy Anderson and English conditions?
If Warner is not going to play in that first Test — and once the series starts there is very little time for acclimatisation — why haven’t the Aussies made a strong stand by sending him packing? That is what they did with another player involved in alcohol-related incidents in 2009, Andrew Symonds.
What we are left with, it seems, is another own goal on a tour which has got off to the worst possible start so soon after the humiliation Australia suffered in India. At least on that trip captain Michael Clarke and coach Mickey Arthur got tough in disciplining four players — Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Johnson — for failing to do their ‘homework’ after being asked to come up with ideas on how the squad could improve.
If they were being consistent, Australia should have sent Warner home. They have shown weakness and inconsistency in not doing so.
Their catalogue of errors, which started when they were bowled out for 65 by India in a warm-up game and continued with worries over Clarke’s fitness, goes on.
And does it not seem odd that Clarke should stay in London for treatment during Australia’s first two Trophy games while breaking off to make an appearance at Shane Warne’s charity match? That does nothing to ease the suspicion that there is a big divide in the Australian dressing room.
It is surely inconceivable that any county would provide Warner with the opportunity for match practice in the next month. It is all very well Chris Rogers and Ed Cowan playing county cricket in an Ashes year but giving a break to a sucker like Warner would be close to treason in this of all summers.
So Warner will be part of the squad but he will not be able to play. At least he might be able to spend more time in his favourite Walkabout Bar in Birmingham, where he is said to be well known. He will have plenty of time on his hands now to further acquaint himself with the place.– Daily Mail