In the ongoing Boxing Day Test against South Africa at the MCG on December 27, Australian opener David Warner ended an almost three-year streak without scoring a century in a Test match by scoring a record-breaking hundred. In the ongoing second Test match between Australia and South Africa, Warner, who was playing in his 100th Test, struck an astonishing 200 runs before retiring hurt. His wife Candice Warner is hoping that the cricketer’s record-breaking performance would now put his critics to rest.
The 36-year-old opener was getting a lot of flak for his bad form, but at the MCG, he responded appropriately with his bat, and Candice said she was immensely proud of her husband.
Candice Warner was quoted as saying by The West Australian: “Just incredibly proud. A sense of relief. David’s back has been against the wall and everyone has been saying he’s too old or he should retire, but first of all, to hit 8000 Test runs is a huge milestone and then to get a Test century — hopefully now people will sort of back off him a little bit.
Candice made fun of Cricket Australia by claiming that Warner didn’t receive any support from the board regarding the captaincy controversy and that the opener wasn’t actually a smart idea at that time.
She added, “It hasn’t been an easy summer with the bat, but also behind the scenes, he hasn’t really received a hell of a lot of support where it’s needed. He’s very grateful for his teammates, his coaching staff, and his friends and family who are all here today, but it hasn’t been easy. If it comes down to the captaincy stuff, if we’re talking about that, it’s been dragged on and it shouldn’t have.”
Additionally, Candice stated that they were aware that Tuesday would be a special day and that Warner would surprise the MCG audience with something exceptional.
Mrs. Warner noted, “Everything else is behind him now, he came here and he was ready to go. He’s had a little bit of bad luck in the last few Tests but he knew what he wanted to do and he executed it beautifully. It’s funny everybody says form slump, but that’s not the words he’s been using, it’s not the words everyone has been talking about in the change rooms.”
She signed off by saying, “He just hasn’t scored the runs that he’d like, but he’s such a positive person, he knows what he has to do at training to get the best out of himself. We knew that today was going to be special, we knew that this Test, besides being his 100th Test, he was going to deliver.”
Warner joined England’s Joe Root as the only other batsman to reach a double century in his 100th Test.