‘So rattled’: Aussie openers lift lid on what it’s really like to bat with ‘extraordinary’ Warner

What’s it like opening the batting in a Test match with David Warner?

It’s an experience only 12 Australian cricketers will have the fortune to live through.

How would some of them describe their opening partner when they’re standing at the non-striker’s end waiting for him to face up?

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“Fierce.” “Aggressive.” “Trailblazer.” “Big personality.“ “Game changer.”

They’re the words that some of Warner’s opening partners used to describe the left-hander who will bring his red-ball career to a close at his home ground, drawing the curtain on one part of one of the great multi-format careers for Australia.

Of the 12 players that crossed the boundary line to open the innings with Warner, no one did it more times than Chris Rogers. The ice to Warner’s fire, the pair opened the innings 41 times together.

Rogers, who played all but three of his 25 Tests with Warner, admitted he was “frustrated” when Warner was first picked in the Test side off the back of limited first-class cricket. All while Rogers was piling on the runs for Victoria in a bid to resurrect his international career and add to his solitary Test cap at the time.

But while speaking to foxsports.com.au this week, Rogers pinpointed the moment in Warner’s second Test match where he knew that the left hander from New South Wales was an “extraordinary” talent and was going to be a consistent name at the top of the list for Australia “for the long haul”.

“I was probably frustrated when he first got picked. Just because, how do you earn that right?“ Rogers told foxsports.com.au this week.

“But there were some very good judges who thought that he had what it takes to help Australia be a better side.

“That hundred he got in Hobart in his second Test match where he carried his bat, and from then only for the Test openers who were trying to get into the side, it was a bit like this guy is in it for the long haul, don’t worry about him at this point.

“It was his position to have given the talent he possessed.

“It’s never really been technique that’s helped him be amazing, it’s that god given talent he has that’s made him quite extraordinary. The way he can hit the ball is almost second to none. It’s up there with Adam Gilchrist, AB de Villiers, and that’s amazing.”

Rogers shared that his partnership at the top of the order with Warner “took a while to click” with the pair’s clash of styles.

While it ultimately helped Rogers settle in and play his natural game once he walked to the wicket with Warner, the current Victorian coach explained the element of “pressure” that came with batting with him.

While Warner often would seek the most explosive of starts, as Rogers explained, it was not the role of his opening partner to “compete” with him as he tried to set the tone. Rather, feed him the strike and recognise how the partnership would grow and work through Warner’s explosiveness.

“Initially from me there was a bit of uncertainty how it was going to work,” Rogers said.

“You didn’t know how he was going to run between the wickets … And the pressure that’s on you to give him the strike, that was another thing that was a challenge.

“There was a Test match early where I think he was on 40 and I was on 2, and the crowd is going absolutely wild, and you think to yourself, they’re here to watch Davey bat, not me bat and that can put some added pressure on you.

“It took a while to click. I remember I made a bad mistake once where I tried to match the way he was playing, and from then on, I just realised that what he brought was unique and I could just ride on his coat-tails.”

Rogers recalled that match as a standout memory of their partnership at the crease. After edging behind off James Anderson for a low score, the dismissal proved to be a decisive one in the pair’s partnership up the top.

From then on in, it wasn’t about “competing” with Warner, rather “allow him to do his thing” and just “be there for him”.

“I was trying to compete with Davey as opposed to just thinking about what I needed to do,” Rogers said.

“That was probably the biggest moment for me. I walked off absolutely kicking myself, saying I couldn’t have done any more stupid thing. But from then on it really wasn’t. It was more just allowing him to do his thing.

“If anything, there were times when the bowlers would have the upper hand and you’d just have to get him on strike, and he’d change the momentum of the game. Then that bowler will get taken off and then you’re back in front.

“You feel like it’s a reflection on you that he’s smashing them down the other end and I can’t even hit them off the square and it gets in your head.

“Once you get over that, you realise just how much of a pleasure it is (to bat with him) and how he can help you rather than hinder you. The fact that someone up the other end is scoring so quickly, just takes all the pressure off you.“

Rogers added that Warner’s “personality” and the way he expressed himself through his batting often shifted the focus of the opposition, sucking “all the attention” from the opposition.

“The best thing that I did was I stopped looking at my score and just looked at the partnership score and then you realise there he’s just taking all the pressure off you from a scoring point of view and you can sit in and play your own game,” he continued.

Matt Renshaw, one of the men in line to inherit Warner’s position, was the youngest of Warner’s 12 opening partners. Thrown into the national team at a time of turmoil, he spent a calendar year opening the batting with Warner.

In just his fourth Test match, he was at the other end when Warner produced one of his most belligerent and special Test centuries, when he went on to score a century before lunch in the New Year’s Test against Pakistan.

“I was so rattled,” Renshaw told foxsports.com.au this week.

“I was so new to the Test arena, and I was finding it hard as a lot of people new to the level do. And he’s coming out scoring a hundred in a session, which for me at that time, I didn’t even think was possible.

“I remember I got booed for not giving him back the strike one ball and then cheered the next ball because I played and missed the last ball of an over because they knew he’d be on strike and could get there.”

The Queenslander said that Warner was ahead of the cricketing curve, pointing to the way that he was able to adapt and perform across formats and be a consistent scorer.

“If you look at Bazball, he was probably 10 years early on that Bazball train,” Renshaw said.

“The way he can perform in so many different conditions has been big.”

The 27-year-old echoed the sentiments of Rogers, explaining the feeling of walking out to the middle with Warner to open the innings filled him with a sense of calm and control.

Renshaw grew up watching Warner and in later years, modelled elements of his game on his fellow left hander. The experience of walking out to open the batting with one of his heroes was “cool” and an experience to cherish at an early, yet formative time of his career.

“The whole experience of that time and guys that I’d watched growing up and then getting to go out and bat with was pretty cool. Even getting to field in the slips next to some of those guys was pretty special,” Renshaw said.

“It was a weird time for me, but it was one that I know to cherish because of the special company I was in, even at that time.

“You look at Davey’s record, it’s one of the best records as an opener of all time. To do it how he’s done it definitely sets him apart from others.”

Renshaw said the team will miss Warner’s “energy” in the changerooms the most outside of his batting prowess.

“He’s so competitive with everything he does,” Renshaw said.

“You even play a warm-up game with him and he just hates losing. Like most of the guys but sometimes you play a warm up game and it’s more competitive sometimes than the cricket.

“Those attributes, someone who hates losing as much as he does, someone who’d do anything for the team, I think that’s what sets him apart.”

Rogers agreed the hole that Warner will leave in the morale and energy of the team will be hard to replace, adding to an already impressive resume that will cement his “legacy” among the top echelon of Australian cricket.

“You need characters to bring energy and keep things going,” Rogers said.

“So, they’ll miss him from that point of view no doubt. As a player, he’s pretty irreplicable.

“That’s probably the legacy he’ll leave behind, now we’re talking about trying to find an opener who can score quickly. We’ve never really had that conversation before, so that’s probably his legacy.”