A David Warner innings to remember

David Warner now has five World Cup centuries — as many as Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara — and a World Cup tally of 1,085 runs, second only to Ponting (1743) among Australians. 

Friday's 163 was also Warner's third 150-plus score in the World Cup, a feat no batter has achieved. Add a record four consecutive hundreds against Pakistan and you begin looking for red flags, what may have curbed a great one-day career.

There are quite a few, none so plain than the fact that though he is 109 Tests old, Warner just hasn't played enough— the Bengaluru game on Friday was only his 154th ODI — in a 14-year career.

It's an oddity to begin with, because Australia openers have traditionally been given longer mandates in that role. Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden were two of the cleanest and fiercest strikers of the cricket ball but Mark Waugh was about silken touch.

Warner, however, has the ability to quietly change the tempo of a match. There isn't a signature shot as such even though the flick off the pads and picking the ball off his hip swipe do make up for bulk of his runs. Much later comes the backfoot punch, or the cover drive, making Warner a unique opener. Very few openers swing the bat with fear but Warner brings a real sense of urgency to it.

Take nothing away from his intent though. For whenever Warner has got cracking, Australia have got cracking. Like on Friday, when he batted better than even he thought he might, and rode his luck of course, like all good cricketers do. Warner should have been caught on 10, just as much as he should have "gone through the shot". You can't miss the sense of opportunism too, even when he could have got caught. "I was actually not happy I didn't get a single as well," said Warner on that dropped catch by Usama Mir after Australia's 62-run win against Pakistan.

"It's how it is when you're an opening batsman. If you're going to go after it, you're probably going to give some chances."

It's this matter-of-fact approach to batting that makes Warner such a terrific competitor. He scoffs at suggestions that he might have a better measure of some teams (like Pakistan) but then in his own way Warner says the same. "It just so happens to be that I've scored, as you said, four consecutive hundreds, which I didn't know about until they came up. But for me, it's going out there and just doing my best every time. And I think for me, I'll probably even look at someone like Shaheen Shah (Afridi) and think, oh, he probably has my measure a little bit. But he doesn't."

At the core of this belief is the strength drawn from his Test game. "What I've established early on in my career is that 50 overs is a long time," he said. "And having played Test cricket, you actually can take that out on there and change your gears quite easily. So, in the first 10, two new balls, you got to respect that. But then if you get away, you can get on top of it and then you can be 50 off the first 10. And then from there, you set the platform for yourself and that's the energy you feed off. And then you look to try and bat.

"For me, I look to try and get to 35 overs and then from there, try and put my foot down if I'm still in. So, yeah, it's probably in the back of your mind, you've got a lot more time. And I think that's where in T20 cricket, I've learned a little bit as well to change my gears, especially in IPL. I learned a lot when I was playing for Sunrisers (Hyderabad) that you're able to have a lot more time than you think. And I think playing on these surfaces specifically, you know, if you give yourself time at the back end, you can actually score big. And that's what I felt today."

Some of the sixes were hitting the roof, the boundaries were threading gaps but a lasting memory of almost every Warner innings is the way he runs his runs. Friday too was no different. Warner ran 43 singles and five twos at a ground where it doesn't take much effort to clear the boundaries. It's this balance Warner tries to strike with every big hundred that makes him such a matchwinner.

Already a T20 World Cup winner, it's almost certain there won't be another ODI World Cup for Warner. Which only makes this exit even more curious, especially when you consider Warner was the first Australian to debut in the national white-ball side without playing a first-class game, a prodigy in every sense of the word. Yet, he may always be remembered as one of the many nearly-there greats in white-ball cricket. The aggregates certainly don't qualify for it. But break it down into innings like this, and it's impossible to underplay the importance of Warner.