How times have changed
How times have changed.
Over the years, perforce since the days of indentured labour and voluntarily, thereafter, our forefathers have crossed the seas to earn a living darya paar (overseas).
In a sign of the revolutionising times, David Warner, the rising star of Australian cricket, dubbed Rocky Balboa by his adoring fans, hopes to buy his underprivileged parents a new home from his earnings in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Warner burst on the international scene with a whirlwind 89 off just 43 balls in his first (Twenty20) match for Australia at the MCG last week, without even playing a first-class game.
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WHACK! David Warner in full cry. PIC COURTESY: PA Sport |
He now lives with his parents in the Sydney suburb of Matraville and is grateful to them for spending enormous amounts of money on him and his older brother Steve on bats, balls, uniforms and cricket camps through years of club and grade cricket.
His parents Howard and Lorraine are said to have never complained and, according to the mother, cricket was a means to get them out of the subsidised housing estate in which they live.
"I want to repay them I have to. If I'm fortunate enough to be able to buy them a house, I'll buy them a house," Warner said yesterday.
Although David Warner's contract in the IPL is signed, sealed and delivered, his place in the Australian team is not.
Warner was initially left of the squad for yesterday's one-day international against South Africa at Tasmania.
Included at the last minute as replacement for injured Test vice-captain Michael Clarke, Warner was out for seven, caught by Boucher off Dale Steyn, to the great disappointment of millions of Australians who had expected another display of brilliant fireworks from him.
The selectors had made it clear to the ambidextrous opener (he can destroy the ball batting right-handed, as well), that he was being selected for one, and one game only, with Clarke and pace in-form bowler Mitchell Johnson likely to return to the team.
Mentored as a leg spinner by Shane Warne himself, Warner has ambitions of developing into a regular leg spin bowler for Australia.
Left-handed Warner has been the toast of Australia ever since he burst on the scene with his whirlwind in the first Twenty20 game against South Africa, his praise sung by Aussie Test legends and TV commentators Mark Taylor, Bill Lawry, Shane Warne, Ian Healy, Adam Gilchrist and Michael Slater.
Warner's manager Peter Lovitt says suffocating media attention has been the greatest shock to the 22-year old's system.
Surreal week"About a week ago he was waiting to play his first game for Australia and maybe even wondering if he was ready for international cricket.
"Now he knows he is. It's been a surreal week but nothing about him changes. The most surprising part for him has been the power of the press and all the media exposure.
"He's on a steep learning curve there. There's obviously interest but he's handling it all OK. He's enjoyed the rideu00a0... He has to make runs."
As suggested by their coach Mickey Arthur, the South Africans put pressure on the young opener in yesterday's limited overs match at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart.
"He (Warner) seems to be weighed down by expectations," Arthur said.
Of his knock in the first ODI last Sunday, in which Warner was dismissed for seven, Arthur said: "Once we put pressure on him, as we saw in the Twenty20, it was a little bit of inexperience there and he perhaps just lost his head a little bit.
"We've put the telly on for the last week and all we've heard about is Warner. Really, to be totally honest it's on the back of one innings, at international level anyway. So he's got to be feeling the pressure", Arthur said.
There's going to be a huge expectancy on his shoulders and we'll probably look to exploit that a little bit and keep building pressure so perhaps he does lose his head a little bit."
The wunderkind was expelled from the Australian Cricket Academy in 2007 for keeping his room 'untidy'.
Warner attributes it to "immaturity".
"It woke me up," he says. New South Wales cricket gave me one last chance, and I've never looked back," he says.
