Be it cricket or any other sport in the world, no athlete minds to be on the receiving end of good luck in order to succeed. Veteran Australia batter David Warner, who has seen quite a few challenging days during the course of what is a 14-year-old international career now, has also been on the right side of fortune on a few important days.
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Warner would’ve been easily short of four Test centuries had the the twist of fate not been on his side on each of those occasions. That said, it would be unfair to not credit the southpaw for converting those chances into praiseworthy knocks to punch the opposition out of the match more often than not. Interestingly, all those instances had come in home Tests.
David Warner Got Out On No-Balls Four Times Before Completing Test Centuries
Not known to give second chances to people who err in front of him, Warner has made sure to punish defaulters for bowling no-balls to him on different occasions. In what can be easily termed as an unmatched record, Warner has been dismissed off a no-ball before making most of the reprieve to score an individual century four times.
A beast in red-ball format especially down under, Warner has punished Pakistan twice and India and England once each in terms of converting dismissals off no-ball into Test tons. Co-incidentally, pacers were the ones to overstep on each of those four occasions.
The first incident happened during the first Test of India’s tour of Australia 2014-15 at the Adelaide Oval when pacer Varun Aaron bowled Warner at an individual score of 66 in the second innings. With it not being a legal delivery, Warner went on to score 102 (166) before spinner Karn Sharma dismissed him for the second time in the match.
A couple of years down the line, Pakistan pacer Wahab Riaz became the second bowler to dismiss Warner off a no-ball. During the second Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Riaz had bowled Warner when he was batting at 81. Making most of another opportunity, the left-handed batter had managed to score 144 (143) before becoming one of the two wickets picked by the very same bowler in the match.
On debut, England pacer Tom Curran had Warner as a maiden wicket in the fourth Test of Ashes 2016-17 at the MCG. One short of a hundred at the time, Warner couldn’t really capitalize on this particular chance which had come in the form of Curran overstepping. Warner, who only added four more runs, eventually got out to the legendary James Anderson.
Another debutant who had run short of luck in front of Warner was Pakistan pacer Naseem Shah. It all happened in the first Brisbane Test in 2019 when Shah dismissed Warner on 56 only to realize about a blunder later on. Warner, who scored 98 more runs to add to Pakistan’s woes, returned to the pavilion after scoring 154 (296).
David Warner Has Scored Second-Most Centuries Among Australian Openers
Having scored 25 Test centuries thus far, Warner is at the eighth position in the list of highest Test centuries among Australians. Speaking particularly of Australian openers, he is just behind former batter Matthew Hayden, who has 30 hundreds to his name.
As far as Test centuries at home are concerned, Warner currently has 19 hundreds in Australia. Only former captain Ricky Ponting (23) and Hayden (21) are in front of him in this aspect.
Since Warner will bid adieu to the format during the upcoming summer season, he has a maximum of six innings left to better his numbers. It is needless to say that it will be interesting to see if he is able to climb the ladder to outperform Hayden. The 36-year old player also has a golden opportunity to end with more centuries than former captains namely Allan Border (27) and Michael Clarke (28).
