Warner hits sport for six
ERAS in cricket are commonly defined by legendary individual deeds.
There was W.G. Grace, the 19th century Englishman who revolutionised the art of batting and became the game's first celebrity.
Much later came the mean-spirited England captain, Douglas Jardine, who took gamesmanship to a new level in the 1930s with his bodyline tactics against Don Bradman.
Then, the 1970s heralded the arrival of modern cricket's most influential Australian, Kerry Packer, whose contribution was a money tree and the seeds of today's player power.
Now, as we move towards the second decade of the 21st century, we suddenly have a new name: David Warner, a one-time concrete cutter from the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
It sounds almost nonsensical to put into this category a 22-year-old batsmen who is yet to play a first-class match and has made one appearance for Australia in the hit-and-hurry format of Twenty20.
What precisely to make of him is difficult. Could he be a KFC-endorsed comet who will leave us with little more than wistful recollections of that balmy January evening back in '09 when a hurricane hit the MCG?
The last Australian debutant to leave a packed MCG in such a frenzied state was the late David Hookes, who smashed 56 against England in the 1977 Centenary Test.
He went on to play a mere 23 Tests and make a solitary Test century, in Kandy against a fledgling Sri Lanka.
Whatever happens to Warner over the journey, there is no doubt his barnstorming arrival into the international arena will stir a revolution of sorts.
Indeed, it wasn't hard to sense that as well as the most astonishing innings seen from an Australian debutant, we were also watching an historic shift in the balance of the game.
Don't worry about the double-sided bat that he is threatening to bring out of his locker. It's the double-edged sword his presence has created for the administrators.
They have struggled for years to maintain the tradition of the five-day match while ensuring the continued growth in popularity of the money-making shortened forms of the game.
Now, given Warner's presence can reduce even the Australian captain Ricky Ponting to a bit player, this task will be so much harder.
Even though Test cricket has been the least popular of all forms of the international game for some time, it's still generally accepted that you haven't really made it until you've played in whites and a baggy green cap.
Now, colour and format will matter even less to thousands of aspiring Australian cricketers who watched Warner stroll straight from grade cricket and bludgeon a respected international attack into total submission.
As of today, kids will look to him and see an alternative pathway to riches and stardom.
The Test arena may still be the proving ground for the current crop but perhaps not for those who follow.
Even before Sunday night, he had been plucked from relative anonymity to play in the Indian Premier League.
He can now become a hero to millions without playing a Test.
Once it might have been said five-day cricket would always be safe from the Twenty20 onslaught because vehicles such as the IPL rely on reputations forged in the Test arena.
All-time greats such as Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar made their names in the Test arena and the IPL trades very successfully on those names.
In future, though, it could be very different, especially now David Warner has shown a no-name with no fear and a great eye can make it in the big-time.
