David Warner, an idiot who wanders the world in search of unsuspecting villages, has been running his mouth about The Ashes. Which is excellent news.
It is an Ashes tradition that one Australian steps up before every series to make provocative and/or hyperbolic statements.
The task once belonged to the great Glenn McGrath but with that New South Welshman long retired, it has fallen to another — Warner — to take on the duties of tub-thumper-in-chief. And over the years Warner has proven himself a provocateur for our times.
Indeed, it hasn’t always been tubs he has thumped. In summer 2013 there was the famous Birmingham Walkabout dust-up with Joe Root, begun over a difference of opinions about the correct fashion in which to wear a wig.
Later that year, Warner derided various members of the England team whom he considered to be scared and showing it in their eyes. As it turned out, one of them was Jonathan Trott, who was enduring what was once indelicately known as a nervous breakdown.
Now, Warner has channeled his inner Sun Tzu and likened the business of trying to hit a leather ball with a stick to war.
“You try and get into a battle as quick as you can,” he said. “I try and look in the opposition’s eye and try and work out ‘how can I dislike this player?’
“You have to delve and dig deep into yourself to actually get some hatred about them.”
War? Hatred? There are plenty who would argue that this is just not cricket. And, indeed, that cricket is just not war. But what else would we expect?
Of course, diving beneath the obviously dumb and inflammatory language, Warner’s comments are actually revealing: he speaks not of keeping a lid on any bubbling tension between the two teams but of manufacturing it.
Which tells us something about the series that lies ahead.
Mitchell Johnson and Michael Clarke’s retirements have removed two of the most pugnacious opponents from the Aussie ranks; if Ben Stokes makes no appearance for England then the tourists’ agitator-in-chief will also be missing.
But whichever 22 players turn out, it would be a marvel if the occasion did not have them straining at the leash, particularly in Australia, where the art of digging out one’s opponent is a national pastime.
So by way of Warner the warmonger, the first challenge has been made.
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England must be ready for more of this. They would be well advised to take as their reading manual not The Art of War but The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***.
