Test struggles would end sooner rather than later: Warner

David Warner, the Australia opener, believes the "tide will change" as he attempts to end a frustrating run in Test cricket during the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan starting on Monday (December 26).

The 30-year-old has had a record-breaking year in One-Day International (ODI) cricket but has not scored a Test century since his opening knock of 2016 against the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in January. Warner has averaged just 35 in Tests since, after starting 2016 with an average in excess of 50.

Speaking to the press in Melbourne on Saturday (December 24), Warner was confident that his Test struggles would end sooner rather than later. "(It's)probably the same question you could have asked me 18 months ago of the white ball (ODI cricket)," he said. "It's just a little bit of a cycle, I think. I go out there every time I bat to try and put as many runs on the board as I can, same mindset, same process I go through with training.

"At the moment, I am just hitting them well enough in the nets and not making them in the middle," he added. "The tide will change. Many players before have experienced the same thing. I just have to keep a level head, a cool head and make sure that I watch every ball as hard and as closely as I can."

Warner said he had been training well and believed runs were around the corner. "Being a professional athlete and doing it time in and time again, you get used to it but you have to keep calm and back what you have to do," he said. "As I said, in the nets I am hitting them well but you have got to try and take that out into the field.

"Sometimes you see a ball there that might be hit, like the other day (from Wahab Riaz). Probably in white ball cricket, I wouldn't think twice about pulling that ball -the other day he beat me for pace," he added.

Meanwhile, Jackson Bird, the Australian paceman, said the team would attempt to curb the influence of struggling Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who scored just nine runs in the first Test. "He is the captain of their side. He is probably someone that everyone sort of looks up to. His record is outstanding," he said.

"It is hard to write those sort of players off. We have done our homework on their guys," he added. "He is someone, I wouldn't say we are targeting him, but it's always nice to get up over the skipper of the opposition."