There are easy targets – and then there’s David Warner sitting in the Lord’s grandstand holding a crossword puzzle book.
The opener was taking his mind off the action in the middle as Steve Smith and Pat Cummins batted during Australia’s first innings when the TV broadcast turned its attention toward him.
Seeing the 36-year-old casually perusing the brain game was like lobbing up a slow full toss to cricket fans watching at home.
Ricky Ponting got the ball rolling by saying in commentary: “I was trying to get a close-up to see if it was a kids’ one or not.”
And it wasn’t long before social media lit up with dozens of jokes at Warner’s expense.
“David Warner is the first person to ask a crossword book if he can buy a vowel,” one wrote.
“Warner pretending to do a crossword, when we all know it’s a dot to dot colouring book he’s attempting to complete,” wrote another.
Serial reviewer Marnus Labuschagne also copped a drive-by.
“Warner doing the crossword must create an interesting dynamic in the dressing room,” one fan wrote. “Which of his teammates would be the most and least useful in that scenario? Marnus probably thinks he’s good at it but would keep suggesting words that don’t fit.”
But the gold standard – described by one commenter as “the funniest thing I’ve seen all week” – was this suggestion of the progress Warner was making.
Smith returned to form with a century for Australia, but England hit back to dismiss the tourists for 416 in the second Test at Lord’s on Thursday.
Smith had flopped with scores of 16 and six during Australia’s thrilling two-wicket win in the first Test at Edgbaston last week as the Ashes holders went 1-0 up in the five-match series.
The 34-year-old put those low totals behind him with an innings of 110 – the 32nd Test century of his brilliant career, his 12th in all Ashes contests and eighth in England.
England, however, recovered well with the ball on Thursday night by taking Australia’s last five wickets for 77 runs.
Veteran pacemen James Anderson and Stuart Broad, the two most successful quicks in Test history, managed just two wickets between them.
Instead, it was England’s other two frontline pacemen who did the bulk of the damage, with Josh Tongue taking 3-98 in 22 overs on his Ashes debut and Ollie Robinson 3-100 in 24.4.
Australia, despite being sent into bat in overcast conditions and on a green-tinged pitch that favoured England’s quicks, had resumed well-placed on 339-5.
England’s bowlers had failed to make the most of helpful conditions after captain Ben Stokes won the toss on Wednesday.
And there were more worrying signs when Broad speared his first two balls down the legside, with left-hander Alex Carey glancing both deliveries for comfortable fours.
But Broad, regaining his accuracy, had Carey lbw on review for 22 after rapping the wicketkeeper’s back leg.
Mitchell Starc got off the mark in style first ball when he clipped Broad past mid-on for four.
But Anderson had Starc well caught by wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow to leave Australia 358-7.
Starc’s exit brought in Australia captain Pat Cummins, whose batting heroics had guided the tourists to victory in Birmingham.
Smith went to 99 with a fortunate nick to third man for four off Anderson. Anderson then produced an excellent yorker which Smith just got the bat down on in time.
But the very next ball saw Smith drive Anderson through the covers to complete a 169-ball century with his 14th four.
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Smith fell soon afterwards when a booming drive off Tongue was superbly caught by a diving Ben Duckett in the gully.
Nathan Lyon fell into an obvious hooking trap before Robinson ended the innings when last man Josh Hazlewood was caught in the slips.
– with AFP
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