‘There’s your headline’: Warner lights Ashes fuse with ‘moral victory’ sledge, brutal prediction

With a bluntness typical of his approach to cricket, former Australian opener David Warner has scoffed at suggestions England’s “Bazball” approach will swing the Ashes the way of the tourists.

The champion opener, who predicted a 3-1 victory for Australia in the series should skipper Pat Cummins miss the opening Test in Perth as expected, launched an early sledge on his old rivals in Sydney on Monday.

Watch the 2025 Men’s Test matches LIVE & EXCLUSIVE on FOX CRICKET, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.

Speaking at Kayo Sports and Fox Sports’ Summer of Cricket launch in Parramatta, Warner was asked which team’s style would reign supreme in the Ashes beginning on November 21 in Perth.

“The Australian way because we’re playing for the Ashes and they’re playing for a moral victory,” he said.

“There’s your headline.”

But Warner has a warning for Australia. Don’t poke the bear. While the pugnacious left-hander has no issues with getting stuck into the opposition, he said the Australians would be wise to avoid antagonising English captain Ben Stokes.

“I had the fortunate privilege to share a change room with him when he was younger and he has evolved into a serious cricketer and a fantastic leader,” he said.

“If we can sort of not poke that bear and get him up and about, I think that will help the Australians enormously.

“But I do want to see some bantering out on the field and I want to see them going at each other a little bit _ obviously not at Stokes _ because that is what creates that energy and involvement in the game.

“I think that is where the war of words comes out. Generally it is someone like myself who is starting it, but I want to see someone else in the (Australian) camp start something, whether it is Heady or someone else.”

The theatrics surrounding the Ashes have been intense in both hemispheres, with Cummins saying on Monday he could not remember a lead-in to an Australian summer with as much hype as this year.

But the champion bowler, who confirmed he was “less likely than likely” to feature in the first Test and is still awaiting clearance as to when he will next be able to bowl, opted against making a prediction as to what the scoreline will be.

That, he said, remained the domain of “Pigeon”, with Glenn McGrath having already predicted a 5-nil whitewash.

“It feel like each series gets a bit bigger but, this one, basically as soon as the last Test series finished against India last summer, everyone was talking about Perth (and) that first Test match, and it’s just building and building, so it’s exciting,” Cummins said.

“Last summer was probably my favourite summer as a cricketer, just the (size) of crowds that were around and the buzz around Test cricket. It’s already building. Everyone has English mates and everyone in England seems to have Aussie mates, so that banter is already starting. So … just the whole circus and the fanfare around the Test summer, I’m looking forward to it.”

McGrath and Warner may be confident in Australia’s hopes, but Fox Cricket pundits suspect this will be an extremely tight series, with the fitness of Cummins and his ability to feature later in the Ashes critical to Australia’s hopes.

Both Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist predicted a drawn series at 2-all, while former Indian coach Ravi Shastri has tipped the Australians, but only just, and he suspects there will be a result in every Test.

Shastri was in England through the Australian winter and sensed there was a deep-seated hunger from both the English team and also the broader public to regain the Urn.

He hopes the spice that unfolded in the 2023 Ashes series, which spilt over into ugly scenes at Lord’s on the final day of the second Test, carries over to the summer ahead.

Alex Carey famously stumped Jonny Bairstow as England was launching a rearguard challenge, which prompted anger in the crowd and altercations in the MCC Members Pavilion.

“I was there at Lord’s, you know, when there was a little bit of noise made there and I was asked, ‘What do you think?’. I said, ‘Listen, (Bairstow has) no business to be outside your crease. It’s out. You have got to go.’” Shastri said.

“That doesn’t die. It will be brought up by the crowds. You know there’ll be some noise. There’ll be noise early in the series, which is good. You need some spice. I come from a land of spice (and) you need some spice.”

England opener Zak Crawley added to the spice across the weekend when he seemed to confuse which side were the ones to claim a moral victory in the 2003 Ashes.

In an interview with The Times, Crawley claimed that the poor behaviour the English team showed in their home summer against India _ when they spat the dummy as Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar brought up their centuries on the final day in Manchester, and when Crawley kept backing away from Jasprit Bumrah to waste time on the third evening at Lords _ showed they’re “not just nice guys”. It is an attitude they intend to bring to Australia, he said.

“Bazball really winds them up, doesn’t it, which is great. If they get wound up, then that’s better for us,” he said.

“All that stuff after the last series, talking about ‘the moral Ashes’ after what happened with Jonny Bairstow, that was just a consequence of us drawing the series.

“In my eyes, if they’d won, they would never have said it, so it’s a compliment that they felt the need.”

Crawley’s comments sparked confusion on either side of the Ashes divide as the English were the ones who first mentioned a “moral victory” in 2023.

In fact, new England vice-captain Harry Brook coined the term before the fifth Test at The Oval, saying: “We were dominating the game last week weren’t we? So if the game had played out, I would like to think we would have won that.

“So if we can win this week, it almost can make it a moral victory.”

But Shastri is happy that the English team have shown a desire to challenge rivals and said this was crucial if they are to succeed in Australia.

“Verbally and mentally, you have got to go that way with Australia. You have got to give as good as you get and you have got to play hard, because there’s no shortcut,” he said.

“They (will) come at you (and) if you don’t play in that fashion, they will eat you up for breakfast. So it’s important (that they are aggressive) and I think England will come out initially with that mindset.”

Click here to read article