BGT 2023: Mitchell Johnson calls for David Warner's exclusion ahead of the Delhi Test

Time is running out for David Warner, who has got the knives sharpened over his spot once again, as the left-hander failed miserably in the Nagpur Test that started off the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. 

The experienced batter collected scores of only 1 & 10 in his two innings, failing to provide adequate starts that may have eased the visitors' life as they suffered an embarrassing innings & 132-run defeat. 

The second innings reinforced David Warner's longstanding struggles in Indian conditions, with the Aussie opener never looking settled at the crease and ultimately falling to his great nemesis - Ravichandran Ashwin, who had both his edges under threat and offered him no breathing space. 

On his third Test tour of India, Warner's record in these conditions endured a further dip. His Test average in India slipped to a poor-looking 22.16 after 18 innings. 

Johnson calls for Warner's axing 

Selection has been a brewing topic of discussions in the Australian circuit since the start of the Nagpur Test, with captain Pat Cummins and head coach Andrew McDonald deciding to leave out an in-form Travis Head. 

The explanation being that Head has a below par record in the subcontinent and couldn't sustain his fluency and impact on display at home when he travelled to Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year. 

But former quick Mitchell Johnson asked why can't the team management not apply the same logic to Warner, who too has been failing in Asian conditions over a larger sample of matches and innings in the middle. 

"If it’s about a horses for courses policy based on previous form in the subcontinent, why didn’t that apply to Warner?", Johnson wrote in a column for The West Australian. 

Heading into the next Test in Delhi, Johnson advised the think-tank to consider dropping Warner and bring Head back in the line-up by promoting Matt Renshaw, who played in the middle-order in Nagpur, up the order.