David Warner and the story of unmatched IPL consistency
The consistency of David Warner with the bat for the Sunrisers Hyderabad is unbelievable especially considering the T20 format. The Australian opener has amassed 3271 runs from 71 matches for the Hyderabad franchise at an average of 55.44 and a strike rate of 146.9. Warner has smashed two hundreds and 34 fifties in those 71 innings which is equivalent to a fifty-plus score every 2nd innings. Some of the top batsmen in One-Day or multi-day formats don’t have an innings/50+ score ratio as good as Warner for SRH.
All these numbers Warner recorded in only five seasons where he touched the 500-run mark in each of them. In fact, Warner was the Orange Cap winner in three of those five seasons – 562 runs in 2015, 641 runs in 2017 and 692 runs in 2019. In addition to these awards, Warner’s 848 runs in their victorious 2016 season helped him to finish behind Virat Kohli (973). The Southpaw was the 4th highest run-getter in the debut season for SRH with 528 runs which remains as Warner’s lowest season aggregate for the franchise.
Starting from 2014, only two players including Warner have scored over 3000 runs. However, Warner’s 3271 runs remain the most during this period despite him being banned from playing the 2018 season. Virat Kohli, with 3139 runs, is the other player with 3000+ IPL runs since the start of 2014. Among the players with 1000+ runs during this period, David Warner (55.44) is the only one with an average of 50. His batting SR + average in this while is also the 3rd best behind Andre Russell (222) and AB de Villiers (207).
One of the biggest motivations for Warner during his stint with Sunrisers has been carrying the burden on the shoulders. For the first four seasons, SRH didn’t have a trustworthy batsman other than Shikhar Dhawan and Warner. Even Shikhar, in T20s, was not as consistent as he is in ODIs. Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey came as a ray of hope for the Hyderabad franchise last year and would be interesting to see if any new recruits step up and let Warner bat with little more freedom.
(Stats as on September 18, 2020)
