David Warner enters the history books by scoring just a fifty against South Africa in the first Test of the tour on March 1. Warner scored 51 runs from 79 balls and became the first batsman in the history of Test cricket to register six consecutive 50-plus totals on South African pitches. Warner seems to like the Proteas conditions as he has had an average of 84.85 in Tests played in South Africa.
Warner seemed to hit a purple patch in the previous tour in 2014. He amassed a total of 543 runs in 6 innings (3 Tests) including 3 centuries and 2 half-centuries. Only once he failed to get past the 50-run mark when he scored just 12 runs in the first innings of the first Test.
Here is a look at his consecutive scores in descending order –
51 (1st innings), Durban, 2018
145 (2nd innings), Cape Town, 2014
135 (3rd innings), Cape Town, 2014
66 (4th innings), Port Elizabeth, 2014
70 (5th innings), Port Elizabeth, 2014
115 (6th innings), Centurion, 2014
FIFTY! David Warner in great touch to start the series as he finds the boundary again to bring up his half-century from 72 balls: https://t.co/OCM4Rg9T0K #SAvAUS pic.twitter.com/fKN0neRj1X
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) March 1, 2018
Warner’s fifty helped the visitors recover from losing two quick wickets in the first session. Cameron Bancroft and Usman Khawaja got out early leaving the side in danger and almost making Steven Smith regret his decision to win the toss and elect to bat first.
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But Warner and Smith steadied the ship sharing a crucial partnership of 56 runs. Warner got out on the stroke of lunch to Vernon Philander. However, he did well playing out the new ball and giving the middle order batsman a chance to put on a decent score on the board in first innings.
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Smith scored his half-century whereas Shaun Marsh contributed with 40 runs. Mitchell Marsh and Tim Paine will be taking the innings forward. At the end of Day 1 Mitchell and Paine were batting on 32 and 21 taking the score to 225 for 5.
