NEW DELHI: Australia\u00b4s David Warner is refusing to take the bait after being publicly sledged by India\u00b4s cricketers, but even if he wanted to fire back the struggling opening batsman has few runs to back up any fighting words.
\nThe lefthander has cobbled together just 98 runs from four innings in the first two tests of the series in India and has fallen three times to spinner Ravichandran Ashwin — twice in last week\u00b4s defeat at Bangalore, which levelled the series 1-1.
\nWarner has regularly punished India\u00b4s bowlers on the seam-friendly wickets back home, belting them for nearly 50 runs on average, but he has been neutered by the subcontinent\u00b4s flat pitches where he averages 24.41.India have seized upon Warner\u00b4s woes, with top-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara poking fun at the vice captain\u00b4s struggles against Ashwin, who has dismissed him nine times in his career, the most by any bowler.
\n“They were always under pressure when they walk into bat,” Pujara said in a video interview with Ashwin posted on the Indian cricket board\u00b4s website.
\n“I wanted to make sure their batsmen are thinking about it,” Pujara added.
\n“Especially David Warner. Whenever he walks in to bat, Ash is always happy. So I always keep reminding him that Ash is the one.”
\nWarner plundered India for 457 runs in the 2014\/15 home series, which Australia won 2-0, and was involved in a number of verbal battles with the tourists, earning him a code of conduct fine in the second test in Adelaide.
\n\u00b4SPIRIT OF CRICKET\u00b4
\nWarner, who has since shed his image as Australia\u00b4s chief aggressor under captain Steve Smith, was unimpressed by the video but said the tourists would not respond in kind ahead of the third test in Ranchi this week.
\n“It\u2019s just a rule of the cricketing world you keep everything on the field … but that\u2019s up to them. From our point of view, we\u2019ll never do that,” he said.
\n\u201cAt the end of the day we\u2019re professionals and you have to move on from that stuff. Hopefully both teams will come out and play with the spirit of cricket.\u201d
\nThe Bangalore test ended on a sour note, with India captain Virat Kohli alleging his counterpart Smith and Australia had flouted the rules when deciding to review umpire decisions.
\nCricket Australia boss James Sutherland labelled the accusations as “outrageous” and the affair threatened to sour relations for the rest of the series before the rival boards called a truce on Friday.
\nWarner said he would be “pretty upset” if any Australian players aired grievances publicly in the manner Kohli had, but he was keen to move on. “There\u00b4s going to be a lot of niggles here and there around certain things, and I think just a few people got out of hand and I think everyone has reined it back in again,” he said.
\n“So we\u00b4re looking forward to getting out to Ranchi and playing a great brand of cricket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI: Australia\u00b4s David Warner is refusing to take the bait after being publicly sledged by India\u00b4s cricketers, but even if he wanted to fire back the struggling opening batsman has few runs to back up any fighting words. The lefthander has cobbled together just 98 runs from four innings in the first two tests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n