Feature

An all-format great with plenty of controversy - Warner's career timeline

As David Warner prepares for his final Test, a look back at some of the key moments of his career

Andrew McGlashan
Andrew McGlashan
31-Dec-2023
David Warner makes his professional debut in a T20 for New South Wales against Queensland. He scores 20 off 11 balls batting at No. 6.
Age 22, Warner makes his international debut in a T20I against South Africa before having played a first-class match. He smashes 89 off 43 at the MCG, including consecutive sixes off Dale Steyn to go to a 19-ball fifty. "It was just like you were out there with Gilly [Adam Gilchrist] when Gilly's in one of those moods," captain Ricky Ponting said. "It was pretty entertaining stuff, pretty special clean sort of striking."
Warner is handed his first-class debut for New South Wales alongside Mitchell Starc. He bats a No. 6, hitting 42 off 48 balls and sharing a stand of 80 with Usman Khawaja, who is unbeaten on 172.
Ten days after that game, Warner has his ODI debut in Hobart. He falls for 5, but in his next match in Sydney he makes 69 off 60 balls albeit in an Australia defeat.
Scores his maiden T20 hundred with 107 off 69 balls for Delhi Daredevils in the IPL.
October 2011
Hits back-to-back T20 hundreds (135 off 69 balls and 123 off 68 balls) for New South Wales in the Champions League.
December 9, 2011
His Test debut had come a week before in Brisbane, but he was a central figure on what became an epic match in Hobart. He carried his bat for 123 in Australia's second innings but came up agonisingly short of victory when Nathan Lyon fell to give New Zealand the game by seven runs.
In his fifth Test, Warner flays 180 off 159 balls against India at the WACA with his century off just 69. "I was actually looking at my strike rate and I said this ain't Test cricket, this is something different," Warner said. "It's just how I approach the game. I show intent, and it came off today."
June-July 2013
Warner is suspended by Cricket Australia after an altercation with Joe Root in the Birmingham Walkabout bar following the Champions Trophy match at Edgbaston. He then misses the first two Tests of that summer's Ashes after being sent on the Australia A tour of Zimbabwe to find form before being recalled at Old Trafford.
January-December 2014
In nine Tests during the year, Warner scores 1136 runs at 63.11 with six centuries, including back-to-back tons in Adelaide against India. It remains his most prolific year average-wise (except a lone Test in 2020) and the most hundreds he has scored in a calendar year.
March 29, 2015
Is part of the Australia side that wins the ODI World Cup with victory over New Zealand at the MCG.
January-December 2016
In ODI cricket, he scores 1388 runs at 63.09 for the year with seven centuries, the most by an Australian in a calendar year.
March 22, 2018
The most controversial episode of Warner's career, where he is one of three players banned for the sandpaper ball tampering incident in Cape Town on what had already been a hostile tour of South Africa where he had been involved in a stairway altercation with Quinton de Kock in Durban. Warner, along with Steven Smith, is handed a year's ban (Cameron Bancroft gets nine months) but it also comes with a lifetime leadership ban.
Warner makes his comeback to international cricket at the start of the ODI World Cup where he hits an unbeaten 89 against Afghanistan and goes on to amasses 647 runs at the tournament with two centuries.
Averages just 9.50 in the Ashes series as he is tormented by England's quicks, especially Stuart Broad, from around the wicket. It's the lowest average in history for an opener with at least ten innings in a series.
Hits his maiden T20I hundred against Sri Lanka, meaning he has centuries in all three international formats.
Warner plunders an unbeaten 335 against Pakistan in Adelaide, the second-highest score for Australia in Test cricket behind Matthew Hayden and one run ahead of Mark Taylor and Don Bradman. "You grow up knowing what those milestones are," he said. "Forever you talk about Donald Bradman. I remember Michael Clarke at the SCG declared on 329 not out. They're things that you look at the history books and say, 'how did they get there - that's a long time in the middle'. I managed to go out there and do that, but it takes an incredible amount of patience which I surprised myself."
Is named Player of the Tournament as Australia win the T20 World Cup for the first time with victory over New Zealand in Dubai. Scores 53 off 38 balls in the final.
Warner angrily withdraws his attempts to have the lifetime leadership ban overturned when the appeal panel insists on holding the hearing in public. "Some things are more important than cricket," he said. "They want to conduct a public spectacle to, in the panel's words, have a 'cleansing'. I am not prepared for my family to be the washing machine for cricket's dirty laundry."
Becomes just the second player to mark his 100th Test with a double-century with his first hundred in nearly two years. "When your back's against the wall, you can only look to move forward, that's how I've always been," he said. "It was emotional, it was hard out there, it was draining. The build-up, the articles... but to come out here and just back myself and look to score, have that intent, which was probably missing from the last 12 months. It was a magical moment and so proud to do it in front of my family and friends."
Ahead of the World Test Championship final and the Ashes, Warner outlines his plan to retire after the Sydney Test against Pakistan in early 2024. "I've always played every game as if it's my last," he said. "That's my style of cricket. I enjoy being around the guys, I love being part of the team, trying to be that ball of energy in the group. I want to just keep working as hard as I can to get there."
November 19, 2023
Finishes as Australia's leading run-scorer (535 at 48.63) in the ODI World Cup as they take the title with victory over India. Having also won the WTC earlier in the year, he is among the group of Australians to have held global titles in all three formats.

Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo