“He has got that horribly wrong”: When David Warner’s ‘poor and weak’ comment for Jonathan Trott created massive controversy during Ashes 2013-14

The Ashes 2013-14 was dominated by the Australian team, where they whitewashed England by 5-0. It was a complete domination by the hosts, and they won all five matches by a very big margin. The first match was played at The Gabba, which is Australia’s fortress.

Australia won the first Test by a huge margin of 381 runs, and Mitchell Johnson was the hero of the side with 9 wickets in the match. The left-arm pacer from Australia just dominated the proceedings, and he was too hot to handle for the visitors. England’s batting collapsed in that match, but Jonathan Trott’s failure caught a lot of eyeballs.

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Trott was struggling a lot against Johnson, and in the 2nd innings, he tried to play an aggressive brand of cricket, and it was clear that he was struggling. He could just make 9 runs in 9 balls and got out on Johnson’s delivery. David Warner, who played a knock of 124 runs in the 2nd innings was quite critical of Jonathan Trott.

“The way that Trotty got out today was pretty poor and weak,” David Warner said.

“We’ve seen him work hard in the nets on the short ball but trying to face a 150kph short ball from Mitchell Johnson the way probably not to go is to back away.”

When David Warner’s ‘poor and weak’ comment for Jonathan Trott created massive controversy

After his poor performance in the 1st Test match, Trott decided to take a break from cricket subject to long-term stress-related issues. Warner’s comments were criticized a lot as Trott was already going through a lot in his life, and it was assumed that Warner’s comment made it worse.

Andy Flower, England’s Director of Cricket said that the comments were not the reason behind Trott’s decision as he was dealing with it for a long time now. However, he said that he said that Warner’s comments were horribly wrong as players should refrain from passing personal comments on a player.

“Jonathan has had his ups and downs through the month and [his departure] is not directly related to [Warner’s comments]. I would also say that I think players commenting about fellow professionals in the media is disrespectful. I think on this occasion he has got that horribly wrong,” Andy Flower said.

Even Warner apologized for his comments later on. However, it looks like Trott did not forget the comments as he Tweeted ‘Good Bye Warner’ when the Australian southpaw was banned after the sandpaper gate. Trott played his last Test in 2015 against West Indies. He scored 8128 Test runs at 47.18 with the help of 9 centuries.