NEW DELHI: David Warner is not having the best of times in India. The swashbuckling opener and the vice-captain of the visiting Australian team has become the proverbial bunny to Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Speaking to Cricket Australia website after the drawn Test at Ranchi, Warner said, “Everyone in world cricket, greats and legends of the game have had stints overseas or at home where they’ve had some form slumps, and that’s just the game of cricket.

“I feel fantastic, I couldn’t be hitting the ball any better but it’s just that the runs aren’t coming for me at the moment. That will come, it will turn around. I just have to keep being disciplined and making sure that my preparation is still the same.”

Five of the top six Australian batsmen have posted at least one half century in the three Tests to date. But there remains one crucial part of the jigsaw that has stubbornly refused to snap into position, and vice-captain Warner believes his lean trot with the bat is due to be remedied in the decisive fourth and final Test that starts in Dharamsala on Saturday.

Warner’s 131 runs at 21.83 (with a series high of 38) is second only to India captain Virat Kohli’s return (46 runs at 9.20) as the greatest disparity between expected performance and eventual output.

Of broader concern is the continuation of a trend that has shown Warner to dominate rival bowling attacks in Tests played on familiar home tracks in Australia, where he averages almost 60 and has plundered 14 of his career tally of 18 Test centuries.

But he has found it increasingly difficult to replicate that form away from home, where his average drops to less than 37 and he has not posted a ton abroad since his 133 against Pakistan at Dubai in October 2014. Which is 16 offshore Tests ago.

“There were tough periods where I kept on thinking to myself ‘am I actually doing the work at training? You always question yourself, are you doing the right things at training and are you preparing as well as you can.”

“I’ve just got to go out and keep backing myself and when I’m out there adapt to the conditions and then keep backing myself to try and keep putting the runs on the board.”

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2017