Warner, KP resort to type

Given they flock to microphones during an Ashes Test like galahs to waterholes amid an outback drought, it should surprise nobody that the most useful assessment of a dramatic second morning came from an ex-England captain.

The unique element of former Ashes-winning skipper Michael Vaughan’s observation that “you’ve got to respect the game” was that it could be justifiably applied to culpable batsmen in both teams.

In the interests of contextual authenticity, Vaughan made his comment shortly after England’s resident enigma Kevin Pietersen erased all the kudos he had painstakingly gathered across four hours of self-restraint on Boxing Day by lapsing into three minutes of mind-snapping self-indulgence the day after.

But it was a truism that could just have readily been applied to Australia opener David Warner, who spent only slightly longer trying to disprove his own theory that his outstanding form of the Commonwealth Bank Ashes series thus far is due to his new-found maturity and judicious shot selection.

As Vaughan so succinctly encapsulated, both men can plead guilty to disrespect.

To the prevailing conditions.

To the finely-balanced match situation.

To the expectation of their respective dressing rooms.

Pietersen’s demise was as difficult to deconstruct as so much of his career.

He clearly battled against his instincts for the best part of four hours on day one when he laboured to an unbeaten 67 from 152 balls, which led many who were previously happy to criticise his carefree approach to suddenly query his capacity to stonewall.

It was not his natural game, they railed.

If he is to survive and England is to prosper, he must play his shots, they opined.

Having got himself in strife through his injudicious use of social media in the past, it’s unclear whether Pietersen was moved by this conversation as it played out in the twittersphere and other such vehicles for nuanced opinion.

What was immediately clear when he fronted up to Mitchell Johnson this morning was that he was keen to not only play his shots, but to add some previously unseen ones to his repertoire.

Like the kamikaze thwack he aimed at the first bouncer Johnson sent his way, just two deliveries after England’s parlous overnight position had descended to perilous when Tim Bresnan fell to Johnson’s first ball of the day.

The fact that Pietersen narrowly avoided wearing that thunderbolt seemed to send his adrenaline levels skyward.

Which was the same flight path his head took two balls later when he played the sort of wild slog most often seen along the shoreline or in backyards or at other non-Test venues where youngsters try nobly to belt their grandma’s bowling beyond the horizon.

Of course, if Pietersen’s ambition was to ignite an even wider global quarrel over his suitability to continue as a Test cricketer, then this swing, which delivered nothing except a badly skewed middle stump, was a triumph.

However, it also sent a poor example to – as ex-England captains and other lesser mortals who inhabit commentary boxes are wont to preach – ‘any youngsters out there watching’ on how to carry yourself as a top-order Test batsman.

Unfortunately, and contrary to recent self-assessment that he’s all grown up, 27-year-old Warner soon revealed himself to be one of those impressionable youngsters.

He began, continued and finished his brief innings as if the attack he was trying to dominate comprised a couple of teenage net bowlers rather than a new-ball Test duo ranked nine and 14 in the world respectively.

Having opened his scoring with a scorching drive down the ground, he swung and missed at the fourth ball he faced from Stuart Broad and then – with a square driven boundary in between – repeated the ambitious slash with the same result later in the over.

Unwilling or unable to rein himself in, Warner then tried to pull a ball from Broad that was too full and on him too quickly, and the resultant mis-stroke looped tantalisingly close to the bowler’s outstretched hand.

The opener continued to ride his luck despite there being no discernible evidence that it was in and, having failed to connect another attempted swish against Broad, he decided Anderson should suffer the same potential punishment.

So he tried again to connect on a pull shot to a ball that wasn’t quite short enough and didn’t bounce quite high enough.

It did, however, manage to balloon a long way in the air from his top edge and Jonny Bairstow could only have dreamed that his first catch in England Test wicketkeeper’s garb would arrive on such a velvet cushion.

As is so often apologetically said of Pietersen when he similarly self-destructs, ‘oh, but it’s the way he plays’.

But having persuaded us repeatedly and almost convincingly that such an excuse is no longer valid, Warner was just as deserving of Vaughan’s opprobrium on Australia’s poorest day of the summer.