Warner snaps the yellow tape

Plenty of the first 3,359 days of David Warner's international career were the wrong kind of eventful. There were too many on-field altercations with opponents to list, and to overlook.

Off the field, he punched Joe Root in a Birmingham bar.

Further afield, he inspired Martin Crowe, his polar opposite in every sense except vaguely geographically, to write that his "thuggish behaviour has gone too far" and to label him "the most juvenile cricketer I have seen". To the cricket-minded, whatever their nationality, Warner was the embodiment of Australian-ness. Playing against him was singularly unpleasant. Sharing a dressing room with him required the restraint of friends of parents of unruly children. Some who knew him even that closely speak of encountering him alone in a lift, and being utterly ignored as the floors flicked past and the small box of space froze with passive aggression.

None of that could match what started to happen on day No. 3,360 of Warner's career. It was March 24, 2018, during the third Test at Newlands. A ball-tampering plot utilising sandpaper, implemented by Cameron Bancroft and at best unacknowledged or at worst given the go-ahead by Steve Smith was exposed by SuperSport, who fancy themselves as South Africa's 12th-man.

Bancroft, then 25 and playing in his eighth Test, was the most junior member of Australia's team; a gangly, buck-eared, baby-faced coffee nerd whose brewing equipment toured with him. Smith was and remains a test-tube cricketer, something like a savant who isn't fully human before he steps onto the field, whereupon he becomes something like superhuman. These two? Ball-tampering masterminds? That's like Tom and Jerry dealing cocaine. The devil made them do it, of course. Either him or David Andrew Warner. To many, they were one and the same.

If all Warner had been guilty of was orchestrating a flagrant breach of what cricket calls, quaintly, its laws, he would have come off the cross having spilt less blood than he did. See paragraph one above for why that didn't happen. Add the unresolved rancour caused by Warner, having been at the forefront of the Australian players' lengthy, high-profile pay dispute with their suits that had ended six months earlier. So his own administrators weren't lining up to treat him gently, or even fairly, after Newlands.

The South Africans couldn't care less about ball-tampering: Faf du Plessis and Vernon Philander had been found guilty of the same offence three times in less than the previous five years, and their fans still loved them. That Warner was Australian, and thus fair game for unfairness in the minds of South Africa's more boorish supporters, would have counted for something.

What had turned them and their meeker compatriots against Warner unequivocally was the video footage that emerged from his run-in with Quinton de Kock on the staircase leading to the dressingrooms during the first Test at Kingsmead. Warner looked like a roaring drunk in dire need of a bouncer - of the nightclub variety - to throw him out as he rounded on De Kock repeatedly, apparently threatening increasing levels of violence as they climbed the stairs.

The backstory was that de Kock had retaliated to being verbally abused by Warner on the field for the best part of a session by making a disgraceful comment about the Australian's wife. When the series lurched to St George's Park for the second Test, some of the worst of South Africa's fans wore face masks calculated, clumsily, to antagonise Warner by shaming his wife. As it happened, only shame stuck instead like egg to the faces of the masked pathetics.

By the time the series reached the last Test at the Wanderers the Australians were husks of the men they had been when they arrived. Those who were left, that is. Warner, like Smith and Bancroft, had been dismissed in disgrace and sent back to Australia. Each offered fraught, lachrymose contrition on their return. Around them the saga had exploded far beyond what should have been its limits, a champagne supernova in a stubby holder that twitched the attention-seeking antennae of the suit-in-chief himself - the prime minister - and held a mirror up to all Australians in all sorts of ways. Surely we're better than that, they asked themselves. Don't be so sure, the rest of the world replied unbidden.

Thursday marked 699 days since March 24, 2018. And, suddenly, rudely, even, there he was, back at the scene of the fallout of the crime: David Warner behind the microphones at a press conference at the Wanderers. On Wednesday, Smith had fronted up. You've got to hand it to the Aussies - they aren't hiding. Then again, Smith and Bancroft came to the presser that day at Newlands and tried to lie themselves off the hook.

"Echoing Steve's words yesterday about, firstly, walking into the airport and then walking into here, the memories weren't great," Warner replied to the first question. "But, the last few days, every single person we've come across, that's asked for a photo or come into contact with and spoken to, have nothing but great words to say. You know, welcoming us to the country and being really polite. It's been incredible how much support we've had from people and the public. I've just been playing golf, and they went over and above to make us feel welcome. It was a great feeling."

But Warner knew better than to expect to be greeted by the fake gentility of a golf clubhouse when he crosses the boundary at the Wanderers on Friday, when the first of three T20Is will be played: "I know what's going to get thrown at me every time I play, wherever it is in the world. It's nothing I haven't heard before. I'm not concerned about it. You've got to have some sort of respect as well. If people want to go to the ground and carry on like that, it's on themselves. They've got to look at themselves in the mirror. If they want to act like that, so be it. It doesn't bother me, but they're representing their country as well as spectators watching a game of cricket. I'm pretty sure we don't want to walk away as teams criticising the way their fans are acting. That's up to them." South Africa's least respectful crowd are sure to take Warner up on that challenge on Friday, so best he be prepared.

Was he ready to see De Kock again? "We'll cross paths playing against each other, but I don't have his number. I speak to a few of the South African guys but I've never played in the same team as him so it's a little bit different. I'm sure if we see each other on the field we'll just treat each other how we normally would; as respectful opponents. It's one-day and T20 cricket. You don't really have much time to get under each other's skin. You don't go out there to do that." Really? With his record for doing exactly that, he could have fooled a lot of people.

What about you, Mr De Kock? "Me and him have moved on from there," De Kock said earlier on Thursday. "We're looking to just play cricket. We both love to play the game really hard. I don't think anything will happen. We won't worry too much about it." But he didn't shut the door on all that: "If something ignites - maybe if a player decides to take on another player - then maybe fierceness from both of teams will reignite again. Who knows? Maybe not. Maybe we just play the game hard but not with, you know"

We don't know. But Warner does. Like John McEnroe needed Bjorn Borg, or Diego Maradona needed his left hand, or Lance Armstrong needed a quiet corner to shoot some human growth hormone, Warner needs conflict. Without it, he is just another fine cricketer. With it, he is exceptional. He's been stone cold sober for 699 days. Hasn't touched the stuff. Will day No. 700 be different? Or maybe No. 702 at St George's Park? How about No. 705 at Newlands? Tick...tick...tick...