David Warner

The arrival

David Warner's first IPL season was 2009, with Delhi Daredevils, a signing made outside the auction.

That first season brought 7 matches and 163 runs. The best was still to come.

The peak

The high point with the bat was 2016, for Sunrisers Hyderabad: 848 runs at an average of 60.6, striking at 151.4 in a season when the league as a whole struck at 131.5, with 9 fifties, and a highest score of 93 not out. Sunrisers Hyderabad won the title that year. It came in a season as captain. There were nine seasons of 400 runs or more in all (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023).

Measured against the league around it, though, the most destructive season was 2012: 256 runs at a strike rate of 164.1, 40 runs per hundred balls quicker than the IPL as a whole that year.

Franchise by franchise

2009 to 2013, Delhi Daredevils. 55 matches and 1,435 runs.

2014 to 2021, Sunrisers Hyderabad. Bought at the 2014 auction for ₹5.50 cr. 95 matches and 4,016 runs; captain in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020; champions in 2016.

2022 to 2024, Delhi Capitals, second time round. Bought at the 2022 auction for ₹6.25 cr. 34 matches and 1,116 runs.

3 spells with two franchises in all. The longest was with Sunrisers Hyderabad, 2014 to 2021. 2018 is missing from the record: a season without an IPL appearance.

How the runs came

Across the career, David Warner struck at 139.7. The league around those same seasons, weighted by how much batting each one involved, struck at 131.0, so David Warner scored about 9 runs per hundred balls faster than the typical batter of the time. 62% of the runs came in fours and sixes: 663 fours and 236 sixes, the 8th-most sixes in IPL history.

The ball-by-ball record adds the detail. 36.5% of the balls David Warner faced were dot balls, a higher share than 55% of the 140 batters who have faced 500 balls or more in the IPL. A six came every 19.9 balls, and a four every 7.1.

The fielding record: 88 catches and 9 run-outs.

At the auction

David Warner went under the hammer four times, bought three times and left unsold once. The highest price was ₹6.25 cr, paid by Delhi Capitals in 2022, more than 3 times the base price.

Seasons without an auction entry were played under a retention, a trade or a signing made outside the auction.

The legacy

On the all-time IPL lists, among 810 players, David Warner finished 4th for runs, 18th for matches played, 8th for sixes and 5th for player-of-the-match awards.