Posted by ‘David Warner b Naveen-ul-Haq’ really doesn’t do it justice. You need to see it. Or at least have it described to you alongside a handful of stills.
The switch hit is right up there with cricket’s most hubristic shots. It arguably even surpasses the quite-possibly-smashing-it-straight-into-your-own-face peacocking of the ramp shot.
When you switch batting stance even before the bowler has bowled, what you’re saying is, “I think I am still way better than you even when I am batting wrong-handed.”
The fact that switching stance almost always precedes a ferocious wallop only magnifies that message. It was very entertaining therefore to see all of that implied strut drip away from David Warner in instalments.
Warner went for the switch hit against Afghanistan’s Naveen-ul-Haq today.
Just to underline that this was a premeditated thing…
Position A:
Position B:
Having made the decision to deploy the show-off heave, Warner got his bat right up in the air, ready to give it some humpty.
Unfortunately for Dave, the delivery turned out to be an unhumptiable off-cutter.
Recognising this, Warner had a rethink and instead selected the flat-footed prod as probably the best shot available to him given that he was batting the wrong way round and no longer had any real clue where his stumps were, other than somewhere vaguely behind him.
There they are, Dave – splattered.
Here’s another angle so that you can more clearly see how really very crap this shot was.
As you can see, we have added a caption to the image above, even though that is a thing we almost never do. The caption is ‘crap’.
What you can’t immediately see is that the image filename is crap.jpg
As he walked off, Warner swished his bat angrily through the air.
He swished right-handed.
Get our email, you frippet.
Still not entirely surely how you feel about that shot Yer Maj, could you make it a bit clearer?
Also:
craption
This is a sort-of-slog-of-the-day feature, as the original intent was doubtlessly a slog.
The eventual prod is a thing of beauty, described and depicted masterfully, KC.
That looks like me batting. I cost considerably less than David Warner.
Flipping ‘eck, England.
Australia being knocked out before the semis as previous winners, host nation, and… well, Australia is very funny.
The “tragedy” is that now there will not be another opportunity for Mr Warner to show us his aesthetically exceptional stroke play in the current tournament.
Less than 12 months as world champions. Presumably a record.
Cricket world champions seem oddly akin to British Prime Ministers at the moment.
Oh they’re not that bad/evil.
Looks like there may be something lodged in the windpipes of a few South Africans…
Pakistan were on metaphorical life support, listening to the metaphorical last rites being read, when I went to bed last night.
It all feels a bit “1992 but in a shorter format” just now.
I do like these proper tournaments for international short form cricket.