London - The 32-year-old Warner scored a painfully slow 56 from 84 balls and did not score a run for 14 deliveries at one point
Published: Mon 10 Jun 2019, 11:14 PM
Updated: Tue 11 Jun 2019, 1:18 AM
Australia fans used to watching David Warner give his side a blistering start in limited-overs cricket may be scratching their heads at the pedestrian rate the left-hander is scoring at in the Cricket World Cup.
Needing to give Australia a flying start in pursuit of India's 352-5 on Sunday, the 32-year-old scored a painfully slow 56 from 84 balls and did not score a run for 14 deliveries at one point.
Warner entered the World Cup having blazed his way to a competition-leading 692 runs in the Indian Premier League, but Australia captain Aaron Finch said he had not consciously decided to be more circumspect in the longer format.
"Well, they did have a bigger impact than what our spinners did, through the middle overs in particular where the ball was just starting to hold up.
"Their spinners probably had a bigger impact than what ours did," Finch said.
While Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah restricted Warner at the top of the innings, Finch had special praise for India's spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, who dried up the runs in the middle of the innings.
"Their bowling plans were pretty simple but really effective on a wicket like that.
"They just didn't give us any width to get away or any length to really work with, either over the top or get a drive away.
"I think they bowled really well early. They bowled nice and straight, back of the length, where the ball was just skidding quite low to start with.
"No, it hasn't been a plan, a team plan or an individual plan for David," Finch told reporters of Warner's relatively slow scoring rate.