4 Opening batsmen who changed the course of Test match batting

#3 David Warner (2011-Present)

The best Test opener of the current era

The first cricketer since 1877 to be awarded the coveted baggy green, without having played any first-class cricket, David Warner is well and truly the leading Test opening batsman of the current era.

David started as a marauder of a cricket ball, a skill he displayed with disdain in his T20I debut against South Africa (89 off 43 balls) back in 2009, but it was only when he made his Test debut against the Kiwis in 2011, that he started to establish himself as a modern day great who made batting look sexy. A debut hundred in a losing cause at Hobart 2011 was followed by a breathtaking assault on the Indian bowlers, as he racked up 180 at the WACA in early 2012.

The only opener to smash a hundred in an opening session of the Test match, Warner has stamped himself as one of the leading Test openers of the current era, with 21 hundred at an average of 48.2 in 74 matches.

While he may be out of cricket for a period of twelve months following the ball-tampering scandal, he is certainly the torch-bearer of change as to how opening batting is perceived in this decade.