Cricket's ultimate entertainer: Warner's wild Test ride ends at the SCG

They don't have to like him, and quite frankly, a lot of them won't. But they watch him. They've watched him defy the critics who had him pegged as a Twenty20 slogger, they've watched him troubled abroad - on the pitch and in Walkabout bars - and they saw the cricket world collapse around him in Cape Town.

They saw him return, break records and silence fast bowlers new and old - and they could never look away.

Because the outgoing 37-year-old is in the entertainment business, at times with a persona that wouldn't look out of place in professional wrestling's Attitude Era little more than two decades ago, and he plays to entertain.

Few divide opinion quite like Warner, whose 112^th and final Test begins when Australia chase a clean sweep against Pakistan at the SCG on Wednesday. The way he got here makes for some tale.

You knew plenty about Warner by the time he wore a baggy green. He belted South Africa around the park during a Twenty20 international two years earlier, when he represented Australia before playing a first-class game.

The jury was still out on whether he could make it as a Test batter when he opened against New Zealand in 2011. But with an unbeaten 123, which was almost enough to save the second Test in Hobart, Warner's rearguard innings had earned him recognition as a genuine Test star.

Later that summer we saw the born entertainer at work once more. An Indian side boasting Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Virat Kohli managed just 161. Warner responded with a 69-ball century - then the fourth-fastest Test century of all time - and finished with 180 from 159.

"I was actually looking at my strike rate and I said this ain't Test cricket, this is something different," Warner said at the time.

Where a fast bowler failed to stop him, an off-field altercation did. Warner was suspended by Cricket Australia in 2013 after punching English batter Joe Root in the Birmingham Walkabout bar following a Champions Trophy match at Edgbaston. Warner then missed the first two Tests of the Ashes after being sent on the Australia A tour of Zimbabwe before earning a recall.

He gave up the booze and produced runs en masse, blasting 135 and 145 against an imposing South African attack in Cape Town in 2014 - when Test cricket's No.1 ranking was up for grabs - amid a prolific 12-month period which garnered 1136 runs at 63.11.

But his next set of twin tons were the most memorable.

You can only imagine how Warner was feeling as he rode on the medicab with Phillip Hughes and spent a night sleeping at St Vincent's Hospital after his close mate was struck by a bouncer at the SCG in 2014.

Twelve days after Hughes' death, Warner strode to the crease for a Test match against India at Adelaide Oval. The Australian opener looked to the heavens when he reached 63 - the same score Hughes had finished on in that Sheffield Shield game - before going on to score 145.

While his first innings was full of emotion, his second was a restoration of the pugnacious opener Warner had become known as.

Clean bowled by Indian quick Varun Aaron for 66, Warner was given a hearty send-off on his way to the dressing room. But when replays showed the delivery was a front-foot no-ball Warner yelled "Come on!" to Aaron before reaching 102, and Nathan Lyon would go on to spin the hosts to victory.

"The world knows how I like to get involved and how I like to play my cricket. That's how it is. I try and take it to him, if I have to be a bit verbal I will," Warner said. "Sometimes I do cross that line, I've got to try not to."

When Warner did cross the line, all hell broke loose.

Warner, Australian captain Steve Smith and batter Cameron Bancroft were exiled from international cricket after orchestrating a ball-tampering saga against South Africa in 2018.

Bancroft stashed sandpaper in his pants. Warner was the mastermind. Smith was the captain. Three players bore the brunt of a punishment which far outweighed the crime, and the public discourse turned against Warner, who had already had a stairway altercation with Quinton de Kock in Durban on a hostile tour.

Warner's inevitable return in 2019 was anything but triumphant. He averaged just 9.5 in the Ashes and was tormented by English quick Stuart Broad.

But Warner wasn't done. He hit 39 boundaries and one six on his way to 335 not out against Pakistan in Adelaide in 2019, surpassing the mark reached by Donald Bradman and Mark Taylor. Brian Lara's unbeaten 400 was seemingly within reach before Australia declared.

Soon though, Australia's attacking dynamo lost his way. He went two years without a century and Cricket Australia's drawn-out review of Warner's leadership ban had taken its toll. If he was going to go, he would go down swinging.

With his back to the wall, Warner became just the second player to mark his 100th Test with a double-century when he scored 200 against South Africa at the Boxing Day Test in 2022. His last act was a signature leaping celebration before medical staff helped him off the field.

Warner entered his final Test series with one century from his past 44 innings. His hope to retire in Sydney had been misconstrued as an arrogant and disrespectful demand by former teammate Mitchell Johnson.

But when Warner hit 164 against Pakistan in Perth this past December, it was clear there was still some fight left in the old bull - and people are starting to realise what they've got before it's gone.

"Getting that 160, putting us into a great position for the team, it hit home when people in the streets were coming up and saying, 'Well done, we support you, we back you'. It really means a lot," Warner said.

"The emotions probably started then. I thank all the supporters and the fans out there, because they're the key shareholders in the game. Without them, you know, we don't get to play the game that we love. We don't get to entertain - and we're in the entertainment business. That really, really means a lot to all of us."

His career has been wild from start to finish, with Warner making a public plea for the return of his baggy greens after they went missing from his bag while being transported to Sydney this week.