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Warner made his 26th Test century and finished with 164 as no other Australian passed fifty in their opening day total of 346 for 5 on a surface that had something in it for the bowlers.
Warner had been the subject of a lot of talk in the lead-up to the Test match after Johnson had criticized him in a newspaper column. Warner answered the criticism emphatically and then made no secret about his gesture.
“You saw what it was. It was a nice little quiet shush,” Warner said post-play.
“It’s just anyone who wants to write stories about me and trying to use headlines, get headlines, that stuff doesn’t bother me. It’s just the fact that I have to go out there and do what I have to do. And I’m allowed to celebrate how I want.”
Warner was pressed further on whether he would try and mend the broken relationship with Johnson, having played in a winning World Cup and Ashes alongside him. But the opener referred to comments from former Australia coach Justin Langer who had written in his newspaper column in the West Australian that Johnson should have “praised in public and criticized in private.”
“Mitch is entitled to his opinion,” Warner said. “He’s a former player. You saw Justin Langer’s comments. He said he’s entitled to it. You can go back to Justin Langer’s comments and refer to them and so be it.”
It was Warner’s third Test century since January 2020 and broke a stretch of 16 Test innings without reaching three-figures since his double-century last year against South Africa. He had averaged just 22.81 in those 16 innings with only two half-centuries.
But Warner believes his stunning run of form in the ODI World Cup and his return to form in Test cricket in Perth had nothing to do with any technical changes. He instead insisted it coincided with things settling down behind the scenes following the drama of his captaincy ban appeal with Cricket Australia last summer.
“There’s been a lot of stuff off the field that’s not really distracted me from a personal point of view,” Warner said. “We had a lot of stuff with CA last year and the captaincy stuff and I was going through a pretty, pretty hard time off the field from all that and dealing with it.”
“This year we’ve had a great successful 12 months as a team. We’re all so pleased with our achievements, but we’ve still got work to do this summer. I think, where I am in my part of my career it’s been great. I’ve not really had much to worry about. People make comments but you get on with it and you’ve got to go out there and score runs. Today I did that but as a team, we had a few starts and I know a lot of other guys would like to go on. But I think we’re in a pretty good position on that [pitch].
“I think where we finished today is probably around par minus probably another wicket”
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