Former Australian captain Ian Chappell has said that David Warner must be included in the list of top 5 Test batsmen in the world. Chappell said that if we ignore Warner’s record in India, he is at par with Joe Root, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson.
He also took a dig at Kohli’s record in England. Chappell said that Kohli’s record in England is very ordinary and reiterated that similarly Warner’s abysmal record on Indian soil should be ignored. During the 2014 tour of England, Virat Kohli managed just 134 runs from 5 Tests at a woeful average of 13.40. He didn’t score a fifty on that tour.
“It’s noticeable that on two tours of India, Warner regularly got starts but then lost his wicket. Admittedly he has got five single-figure scores, but in half of his 16 innings he got to double figures without scoring a half-century. . On the three occasions he attained the half-century mark he wasn’t able to convert to three figures. That is in sharp contrast to his overall record, where he has converted 20 of his 123 Test innings into centuries,” Ian Chappell wrote in his ESPNCricinfo column.
“Any conversation about which batsmen are currently top-rated in Test cricket begins with the Big Three; in order of batting average that’s Steve Smith, Joe Root and Virat Kohli. It’s often noted that New Zealand captain Kane Williamson could easily make it a quartet. Indeed, Williamson should be included as his average is second only to Smith, but David Warner ought to also be there, to extend it to a quintet.
“The main reason for Warner’s exclusion is his record in India. It’s not great, but then Kohli’s record in the UK is far worse, and the two players’ overall average is only about five percentage points apart.”
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Ian Chappell has surely sparked a new debate, specially on the social media. Indian cricket fans are defending Kohli’s record in England saying that he is a much improved batsman that what he was on his last tour of England, and he will improve the numbers this time around.
You can read the full column on ESPNCricinfo here
