The tide will change, I just have to keep a level head: David Warner

Australia opener David Warner believes the “tide will change” as he attempts to end his below par run in Test cricket which he has experienced recently. Although it would be wrong to say he is out fo form, but Warner has n’t been able to perform to the high standards he has set for himself in the past couple of years. The left-hander now aims at getting a big score as he prepares to face Pakistan in the Boxing Day Test starting on Monday (December 26).

Speaking to the press in Melbourne on Saturday (December 24), Warner was confident that his Test struggles would end sooner rather than later. “(It’s)probably the same question you could have asked me 18 months ago of the white ball (ODI cricket),” he said. “It’s just a little bit of a cycle, I think. I go out there every time I bat to try and put as many runs on the board as I can, same mindset, same process I go through with training.

“At the moment, I am just hitting them well enough in the nets and not making them in the middle,” he added. “The tide will change. Many players before have experienced the same thing. I just have to keep a level head, a cool head and make sure that I watch every ball as hard and as closely as I can.”

The 30-year-old has had a record-breaking year in One-Day International (ODI) cricket but has not scored a Test century since his opening knock of 2016 against the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in January. Since then he has experienced a lean patch which saw him score two fifties while missing out on reaching a century by three runs on one occasion. Warner has averaged just 35 in Tests since, after starting 2016 with an average in excess of 50.

Warner said he had been training well and believed runs were around the corner. “Being a professional athlete and doing it time in and time again, you get used to it but you have to keep calm and back what you have to do,” he said. “As I said, in the nets I am hitting them well but you have got to try and take that out into the field.

“Sometimes you see a ball there that might be hit, like the other day (from Wahab Riaz). Probably in white ball cricket, I wouldn’t think twice about pulling that ball -the other day he beat me for pace,” he added.

Meanwhile, Jackson Bird, the Australian paceman, said the team would attempt to curb the influence of struggling Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who scored just nine runs in the first Test. “He is the captain of their side. He is probably someone that everyone sort of looks up to. His record is outstanding,” he said.

“It is hard to write those sort of players off. We have done our homework on their guys,” he added. “He is someone, I wouldn’t say we are targeting him, but it’s always nice to get up over the skipper of the opposition.”