‘If you pick a guy, you back him for the long term’ – Waugh confident of Warner, Bancroft bouncing back

Warner, who was the second-highest scorer at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 – with 647 runs he was just behind Rohit Sharma – has struggled to replicate his white-ball form in Test cricket, where he has failed to register double figures so far in the Ashes, totalling 13 runs in three outings.

Bancroft hasn’t fared much better, aggregating 28 runs in the series so far. Their struggles have put the onus on Steve Smith to do the heavy lifting at No.4 and Australia have, in fact, been saved by the former captain’s brilliance.

"I think it's just Test match cricket, and they haven't been easy wickets,” Waugh said, defending the pair of Bancroft and Warner. “Batting last night was difficult. Six o'clock at night, an hour to go, under lights, overcast conditions – that's as tough as it gets, and this morning was difficult again.

“It's a fine line. You can analyse and scrutinize players, but that's Test match cricket. Sometimes, you are going to miss out. If you pick a guy, you back him for the long term, and right now, we are confident those guys are going to bounce back."

Though he was dismissed for only 13 on Friday, 16 August, Bancroft soaked up 66 balls during his stay and did his bit to blunt the new ball in extremely difficult conditions. His resistance ensured that Smith was protected until the 23rd over, when the ball had lost some of its shine.

"I don't think you look at the runs too much. I think Dave Warner looked really good last night. It was a pretty good delivery which got him. I don't think that's too much cause for concern,” Waugh said.

“Bancroft stayed in there for quite a while, did a good job for the team. They both want to get a lot more runs, obviously. It's challenging, and the conditions over here are not easy for batting. It's not as if the ball is coming on and you can play a big cover drive. You have to work really hard for every run."

It’s with Warner that the greater concern lies, both because of his lower returns as well as the fact that he has been dismissed by the same bowler – Stuart Broad – on each occasion. Broad has routinely beaten both edges of Warner’s bat and has had him lbw, caught behind and bowled so far.

"I don't think I've done anything majorly different, apart from bringing the stumps into play a little bit more,” Broad said of his plan to the ace opener. “In the past, I've seen Warner as looking to find his edge all the time, whereas this has been a slight change of plan.

“That's been on the pitches we've played on. They've been quite dry, much drier than we were expecting as a side. That wobble seam has moved off the dryness of the pitch rather than there being a bit of moisture and swinging. I've just been looking to wobble it onto off stump. There have been a couple of decent balls in there to Warner.”