Watch a full replay of Warner's international debut

The full replay of Australia's opening T20 match with South Africa from January 2009 is now available on the cricket.com.au Facebook and YouTube pages.

Made famous by David Warner's international debut, this is the match a bullish and brash 22-year-old announced his arrival to world cricket against a superstar Proteas side.

How to watch

The first T20 of South Africa's 2009 tour of Australia was streamed in full on May 3 and a full replay of the match is now available on the cricket.com.au Facebook and YouTube pages. It will remain there indefinitely and is available for a global audience.&

Setting the scene

Australia's selectors had created shockwaves with the announcement that David Warner would play cricket for Australia.

The pint-sized, stocky 22-year-old with a buzz cut from a Matraville housing estate had bypassed the traditional pathway, leapfrogging first-class cricket straight into the national set-up.

Nobody had done that for 132 years, not since the dawn of Test cricket.

But Warner was far from a newcomer plucked from complete obscurity. He had played for Australia at the 2006 U19 World Cup, and played his first senior game of T20 cricket for NSW in January 2007, where he smashed three fours and a six in 11 balls batting at No.6.

But his selection to the Australian T20 team was a bolt from the blue, and largely on the back of a couple of six-laden knocks in the domestic 50-over competition on the eve of the series.

He'd started the domestic summer slowly, with knocks of 31 and 0 batting in NSW's middle order, before heading to Hong Kong for the Sixes tournament.

Warner duly smashed the ball all around the Kowloon Cricket Club in seven matches across two days, and was put in as opener in his first game back with NSW.

He promptly belted 165 not out from 112 balls, with nine sixes and 19 fours, and a week later belted another 97 from 54 balls, narrowly missing the record for Australia's fastest one-day domestic ton.

In amidst all this, Warner earned his first IPL contract, snapped up by the Delhi Daredevils, and his profile was quickly growing.

In the state-based version of the Big Bash being played at the time, Warner rampaged to 65 from 35 balls at the Adelaide Oval using a specially designed double-sided bat that allowed him to reverse sweep without changing his grip.

It was dispensed with a week later for a more traditional piece of willow as he strode out onto the MCG alongside Shaun Marsh and in front of some 65,000 fans for the first white-ball match against the Proteas after an incredible Test summer.

The leap from domestic limited-overs cricket to a crowded MCG should have been intimidating. This was South Africa, with Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini leading the attack and supported by Jacques Kallis and Albie Morkel.

Their batting boasted AB de Villiers and Herschelle Gibbs, as well as JP Duminy and Mark Boucher.

But none of it seemed to bother Warner, who played an innings that simply must be seen to be believed.

P.S – Stick around for the second innings for an incredible display of batting by Duminy (you can see the full highlights here), his immense battle with a rampaging Shaun Tait, and a bizarre dismissal for de Villiers after a Tait thunderbolt.