A new-look David Warner returned to professional cricket yesterday but it wasn’t the bright blue uniform or trimmed physique that was the notable change. For the first time in nearly a decade, Warner was not using a Gray-Nicolls bat, instead his willow was sporting Spartan stickers.
With a ‘Gray-Nic’ in his hand, Warner plundered 35 international hundreds, more T20 runs than any other Australian and became the first player to score a century before lunch on any day of a Test in Australia when he put Pakistan to the sword in January 2017.
But in his first match in Winnipeg Hawks in the inaugural Global T20 Canada competition, the left-hander unveiled a new Spartan sponsorship on Saturday. It is unknown whether the ball-tampering incident in Cape Town, that saw Warner suspended from international and Australian domestic cricket for 12 months and banished from holding any future leadership roles in Australian cricket, is connected to the bat swap.
According to the Spartan website, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Clarke, Chris Gayle, Viv Richards and Wasim Akram are Spartan ambassadors.
