David Warner wants room

The angle that right-arm bowlers create around the wicket is extreme for left-handers. It follows them like they are shoplifting. And if you didn't grow up facing it regularly, it's basically alien.

"We always questioned some of the ex left-handers in the day about that. No more wide cut shots."

That is David Warner talking about bowlers coming around the wicket to him. Well, not bowlers, right-arm seamers. When David Warner started his career in 2011, 20% of balls to left batters were from around the wicket from the right quicks. Last year it was 60%. Think of it this way, right-arm pace is basically 50% of all bowling you face. You're facing 40% of that from a new angle. The game that Warner came into no longer exists.

That is why Warner has stopped even talking to the old southpaws, because they never played in a DRS era with guys starting around the wicket to them. Most of the time a lefty would only face someone from there when they were smashing the ball everywhere.

Instead, Warner started talking to the guys who stand on the other side of the bat.

"Talking to a lot of the right-handers, obviously face right arm bowlers, you gotta get into positions where you allow the ball to beat you on the outside. If I get beaten on the outside of my bat and my off stump gets rissoled, then you're not in the right position. So I've worked hard on that over the years to try and do that. I think it's only happened once since. And you're gonna get a ball that sort of angles down towards leg and can swing away."

That ball has caused the problem for Warner, not just him, but kind of everyone left-handed in the world. It's the angle of the ball coming back in, and then leaving them that has caused problems. And a lot of it is just that they didn't face a lot of it previously.

This is a great way of showing what happened, as more balls were delivered around there - especially early in the innings - the batting average drops drastically. Picking left-handers looked like it was no longer a sound tactical selection. But that is partly because they were over-performing before.

Throughout modern cricket, right-handers have scored less than lefties. And part of this was probably the LBW laws, and the lack of DRS. The problem is that as the lefties started struggling more so did the righties. With essentially the same thing. So both have gone down. No batter who has been in the game for a decade hasn't had to adjust. But Warner is someone who has had to do it more.

Part of that is just because his failures were louder. Because David Warner keeps being dismissed by England's great Ashes troll, Stuart Broad. As it stands, Broad could break the world record for the most dismissals of one batter ever.

Stuart Broad has even made ads about concentrated yeast extract that seeps out of brewing machines mentioning Warner.

That probably didn't happen when Hugh Trumble was destroying Tom Hayward. Warner averages 26.64 in Tests when facing Broad.

So for him, this is a very real thing. And it is not just Broad. But you can see that it was 2017 when how he batted in Tests drastically changed. From there on in, Warner has been attacked half the time from around the wicket. But of course, not all bowlers like to deliver from here. So you will see that in 2018 he didn't face bowlers doing that. Now it's rarer for any bowler to do that, and so when David Warner walks out to bat, there will be balls from there.

This is Warner on that angle when Stuart Broad did it enough to get a Marmite sponsorship.

"I was in a defensive mode. And when you, when you're thinking about where's my stump, if I play on this, I'm not actually looking to hit that through covers, where if I hit that through covers so beautiful, I nick off then I'm happy with that."

In the first 16 balls of the WTC final, Mohammad Shami was coming from wide, moving the ball in, and away. Probing at that top of off stump. Looking for a bowled or LBW with the angle, but knowing that if the ball straightens, he is even more dangerous. But what you really see is no room. Warner needs room, he grew up as a player freeing his arms, and now he's permanently tucked up by cricket's new method. Modern cricket has changed left-handers from a type of batter that many people thought were elegant to a bunch of crease trapped victims.

The 17th ball Warner faced in that final, Mohammad Siraj - a bowler who loves coming over the wicket - just gets his line wrong a little. And Warner jumps on it so fast. Because this is what he wants. This is what he grew up with.

Now players like Warner have to manufacture this room outside off stump.

"I think Duckett did a lot the other day as well. So, you know, that's, that's the, the blessing of lefthand that we can try and create that room as well. So hopefully I can do that."

That is what Warner tried to do today. When Broad comes around the wicket but pitches wide, Warner thinks he can use the space given to him. But the angle, and the fact the ball moves back in, takes all that away. And so that means that Warner ends up trying to play about three different shots, none of which are good, and drags the ball on.

You know you've done something wrong when you end up in this position. He's essentially tried to kneel down and lash this through point, and then realised late on it's not where he needs it and just thrown something at it. Doing it all in the ugliest way possible.

Nothing excuses this shot, but the angle - and Broad - are again the main culprits.

Warner of course wasn't the only lefty for Australia today. This is all the left-handers in the world who have faced a lot of over and around bowling. The lot on the right prefer you to bowl over the wicket to them. Those on the left, love when you come around. But while there are very few southpaws who prefer seamers coming around the wicket, it would appear that Travis Head, Alex Carrey and Usman Khawaja would be three of them.

In Khawaja's case, he waltzed back into international cricket just as everyone went around the wicket to his kind. He's the same age as Warner, but a different kind of left-hander. And this new world suits him just as much as it haunts his opening partner. It certainly looked that way today, where he only looked flustered from a no ball, or when he had to pick up his bat after throwing it in celebration.

It isn't true that all of Warner's problems are from the angle. In the WTC he also nicked off to Mohammad Siraj when chasing the width he craves. Of course, you could argue he also goes after it so hard because he doesn't get it much.

But in the first innings of that match, he was bounced out by Shardul Thakur's friendly short ball, which was, in at him.

There was a time when David Warner played cricket the exact way he wanted, and everyone had to move out of the way. But the game changed on him, and now all he can do is think back to the good old days when his style was uncramped. Warner is quickly running out of room.