David Warner hooks at Tim Bresnan but is caught in the deep by Joe Root in the third Test at Old Trafford. Photo: Tom Jenkins / The Guardian
“Yeah, Joey,” said David Warner with a smile when asked, in a surprisingly good-humoured press conference, how Joe Root had greeted him when he came to the crease for the first time in the Ashes series on Friday morning.
“He said to me, ‘It’s been a long couple of months, hasn’t it?’ and I just turned around and had a little smile. I’ve got a long memory.”
It is almost two months since Warner swung a punch at Root in the Walkabout bar in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning after England had beaten Australia in their first match of the Champions Trophy at Edgbaston, but it will be some time yet before the Australian is allowed to forget it.
He had been booed all the way to the middle by a noisy proportion of the 25,750 crowd in Australia’s first innings on Friday, then more loudly when he returned to the dressing rooms after a bizarre attempt to overturn a snicked catch decision.
He received similar treatment whenever the ball came near him in the field when England batted, and again when he was promoted to open in the second innings.
After justifying that promotion and offering a first hint of his ability with 41 from 57 balls, he launched Tim Bresnan towards the square-leg boundary – where Root was appropriately placed to take a good diving catch.
“Yeah, hooked another one to Rooty,” he added. “Out of all the people in the field – it was quite comical. I’ll probably read it on Twitter a bit later.” – The Guardian
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