Rare chance for fairytale finish awaits Warner

If there is anyone who understands the introspection and emotion David Warner might be wading through as he enters his final week as a Test cricketer, it's his former mentor Justin Langer.

It's not only because the pair worked closely together when Warner first graduated to Test ranks in 2011 – at which time Langer was the men's team assistant coach – and again from 2018-22 when Langer assumed the head coach's role.

But there's also a symmetry to the way the left-handed openers of contrasting manner and methods have departed the game that's been their life, choosing to call time on their respective careers with a send-off at the SCG's celebratory New Year's Test.

Of course, some aspects of their curtain-calls 17 years apart are as sharply contrasting as the way they went about tackling the new ball.

Warner earmarked his preferred exit date in early June, a full seven months and nine matches before he takes to the turf for the last time in a Baggy Green cap.

Langer, on the other hand, only reached the biggest decision of his 105-Test tenure in the immediate aftermath of his penultimate appearance and made the news public the day before the fifth Test of the 2006-07 Ashes summer got underway.

While the details of Warner's farewell address – to be delivered (as was Langer's in 2007) when he fronts the media on New Year's Day – remain unknown, it would be no surprise if he makes reference to the intense media speculation regarding his playing future that has clearly rankled him in the recent past.

If that's the case, he might borrow some sentiments from his former coach who spent much of his 14 years in the Baggy Green fending off calls for his axing.

That frenzy reached a crescendo when the Australia team landed at Sydney airport for the ultimate Test of that Ashes whitewash summer, and Langer was engulfed by a press pack demanding he answer questions about his playing future.

When he fronted a media conference in a windowless SCG football changing room the following day, Langer read a thoughtfully prepared statement before taking questions and admitted he had become "ground down" by the relentless conjecture over his ongoing selection.

"I've endured it for a long time, and maybe I'd like to let that go as well, and put a smile back on my face," he said at the time.

There have also been similar schools of thought that both left-handers might have been prudent to pull the pin in the wake of their 100th Test appearances, albeit for vastly different reasons.

For Warner, who crowned his milestone match last summer with a double century against South Africa at the MCG while increasingly crippled by body cramps, the stage was lavishly set for a farewell on his home patch a week later.

But the lure of one more Ashes campaign proved too strong (281 runs in 10 innings, two fifties).

Likewise, Langer was urged to hang up his boots after a traumatic 100th Test also against the Proteas (at Johannesburg in 2006) although on that occasion the counsel came from his inner sanctum rather than via public punditry.

The only delivery Langer faced in that game, from South Africa speedster Makhaya Ntini, clattered so brutally into his batting helmet he was all-but carried from the field with a concussion so severe he spent the following days confined to a darkened hotel room, too unwell to even eat.

"I thought after the Johannesburg Test I was probably finished, when I got that concussion," Langer told cricket.com.au this week.

"I remember my friend (Neil) Noddy Holder, who helped me a lot with my batting, when I got back from Johannesburg he was like the boxing trainer throwing in the towel.

"He said to me 'it's time to retire mate, I can't keep seeing you get hit and hurt like this'.

"When you get hit like I did in that Test match, it's scary and from them on, it was no fun facing fast bowling.

"I don't think there was a ball I faced after that where it wasn't in the back of my mind.

"It's a horrible feeling, so I knew I had to do a fair bit of work.

"I got into the nets, faced the bowling machine and just kept finding strategies for playing short-pitched bowling.

"There was always going to be conjecture about my spot in the team, especially at my age."

Langer had turned 36 by the time his final Test summer rolled around.

Warner is 37 but despite copping a hairline fracture of the left elbow when struck by a Mohammed Siraj bouncer in Delhi earlier this year, which prematurely ended his Test tour of India, he has not exhibited the shortcomings against short-pitched bowling that can characterise late-career batting.

Langer's return to the Test team after that frightening blow came via stints in county cricket (where he scored a triple century for Somerset) and an unbeaten 188 for Western Australia in the Sheffield Shield before peeling off scores of 82 and 100no in the 2006-07 Ashes opener at the Gabba.

After a lean tour of England where he averaged just 27 from six Tests (including the World Test Championship final against India), Warner unfurled an imperious 164 on the first day of the current NRMA Insurance Series against Pakistan to similarly quell any rumblings about his place.

However, as Langer concedes, success so close to the finish line can trick the ultra-competitive mind into thinking the body can be pushed for one more lap.

"It's so hard to let go," Langer said.

"Davey (Warner) might get a hundred in his final Test next week, and like me after that game at the Gabba you start thinking 'what am I doing, I can keep going here'.

"But pretty soon after, it got to that point where I just knew."

Warner's revelation about plans to quit Test cricket while continuing to hold limited-overs international aspirations until June's T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and USA came during a low-key media conference on a pre-Ashes training day at Beckenham in semi-rural Kent.

Contrary to some commentary that has persisted since that chilly Saturday, he did not pre-ordain himself a fixture in Australia's Test line-up until his hometown farewell but acknowledged that would be his preferred stepping-off point because he would not be available for the subsequent two Tests against West Indies.

"If I can get through this (UK tour) and make the Pakistan series, I will definitely finish up then," was Warner's caveat last June.

"That's pending on what you guys (media) write, and whether the selectors pick me."

Langer's Damascus moment on his road to retirement came much closer to the eventual end, during the celebrations of Australia's Test win over England at the MCG when it dawned he would rather be home with wife Sue and their four daughters than leading another chorus of the team song.

Having informed Sue of his decision that night, he then stressed about sharing the news next morning with his father (Colin) only to learn his dad had been hoping to plant the self-same seed in his son's head before they all travelled to Sydney.

The toughest to convince were Langer's two closest friends in the Australia set-up – opening partner Matthew Hayden, and captain Ricky Ponting – both of whom pleaded with their mate to hang on for one more year, so they might all disappear together into the sunset.

But having seen legendary teammates Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath announce their retirements during the week leading into the 2006-07 Boxing Day Test at the MCG, Langer's self-consciousness at adding his name to the star-studded finale was superseded by a deeper realisation.

"They were saying to me 'no, no mate, things are going good – just one more year together'," Langer recalled.

"But I knew 100 per cent I was done. It seemed a very, very hard decision at the time, but when I look at it now I realise it was an easy decision.

"A lot of sports people and coaches always have a bit of a chip on their shoulder because very, very few get to go out on their own terms.

"You're either dropped, or you get injured, or you're sacked so there's always a bit of resentment."

Indeed, since the 'big three' walked off the SCG in 2007 against a backdrop of the first Ashes whitewash in almost 90 years, very few Australia Test players have been afforded the sort of scripted send-off that trio enjoyed.

Like Langer, most of his fellow greats from that golden era – Ponting, Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke – experienced a moment of clarity amid the heat of battle, and were gone very shortly after.

Others such as Brett Lee and Shane Watson came to represent the fragmentation of the game into multiple formats and – as Warner has foreshadowed – simply stopped playing red-ball cricket to focus on other white-ball prospects.

Over the past decade, only Mitchell Johnson has made the call in a manner that enabled his contribution to be recognised with an on-field celebration, having quit all forms of international cricket before the last day of the 2015 Test against New Zealand in Perth.

But even though a week elapsed between Langer mentally and physically finishing up, he maintains he did not allow himself to reflect on his playing days or fantasise about a fairytale finish until he sat down at his pre-game media conference – with faded Baggy Green as a sole prop – and eloquently read his prepared speech.

The poignancy of what lay ahead didn't hit until his Australia career entered its final hour.

With just 46 runs needed in his team's second innings to seal victory at the SCG and close out the 5-0 scoreline that would partially redeem their 2005 Ashes loss in England, Langer found himself succumbing to the emotion of the moment.

To the extent that, with seven runs required and all 10 wickets intact, he approached his mate and batting partner and suggested to Hayden "how about you hit a six and a one, and we walk off as heroes together".

When Hayden obliged by lifting England seamer Sajid Mahmood over wide mid-wicket for a towering six four balls later to level the scores, the pair again met mid-pitch and Langer was offered the chance to crown his career by hitting the winning run.

But fearing he was losing his grip with the foreclosure of his international cricket career staring at him from close range, he bequeathed that duty to his friend with the added instruction to do it quickly.

The game was duly done from Mahmood's next delivery.

"The first second after that winning run was a euphoric moment because I was not out with Haydos, and then it became 'holy shit, it's the end of my career – it's all over," Langer said.

"The three of us – Haydos, Punter (Ponting) and myself – then had a group hug in the middle of the SCG, and it was at that moment I remembered what the game of cricket had given me.

"It had given me the opportunity to earn respect, and I had the respect of my teammates, from the crowd who were giving us a standing ovation, and I might even have earned the respect of the media.

"I also had the respect of my family, my friends and even the opposition because (England captain) Andrew Strauss had given me a guard of honour when I walked out to bat which was unbelievable.

"The second thing the game had given me was amazing memories – I played cricket all around the world and I was just so grateful for that.

"And the last thing it had given me was great friendships, and I'm standing there with my two best mates in the middle of the SCG after we'd beaten England to win a series five-nil, and then I was going back to the dressing room to celebrate with the rest of my best mates.

"That moment just put everything in perspective, and I thought 'how lucky am I?'.

"I'd had a career with lots of ups and downs that finished with a fairytale.

"I'm sure that's what everyone would like to see for Davey as well, or anyone who retires frankly, but it doesn't happen to many people.

"So if Davey can go out with a hundred or even a (three-nil) series win against Pakistan, that would be a nice way for him to finish.

"Very, very, very few sportspeople get to go out with a fairytale finish."

NRMA Insurance Test series v Pakistan

First Test: Australia won by 360 runs

Second Test: Australia won by 79 runs

Third Test: January 3-7, SCG (10.30am AEDT)

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Steve Smith, Mitch Starc, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Shan Masood (c), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi