David Warner during the 2016-17 Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Former India international and coach of the Australian men's national team Sridharan Sriram opened up on how a brutally honest conversation with David Warner led to the star batter having to swallow his pride. 

Sriram, an all-rounder in his playing days, represented India in eight ODIs and was active on the domestic circuit for nearly 20 years with Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Goa, Assam and Himachal Pradesh. He was also part of Delhi Daredevils' IPL squad in 2011.

After retiring, Sriram took to coaching and worked with the Delhi IPL franchise, as well as the Australia A team in 2015. This led to him landing a role on Darren Lehmann's coaching staff with the Australian men's national team in 2016.

Sriram has also worked with Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL as a batting and spin bowling coach, and with the Bangladesh national team as a batting consultant.

Sriram: Warner blasted me in the team meeting

Speaking on former fast bowler Yo Mahesh's YouTube channel last week, Sriram opened up on his early days in the Australian setup, including a brutally honest conversation with David Warner. He said, "In my first interaction with David Warner, I said, 'In Asia, in Test matches (only Tests, I'm not talking about white-ball), if you cannot step out and play or play the sweep, you are a sitting duck. Ashwin will get you out 10 times in 10 innings.'"

Sriram then detailed how Warner did not take his directness kindly at first. "He got offended," Sriram said. "In the team meeting, he blasted me saying, 'I'm such a successful IPL batsman, he's saying I can't make runs, etc.'"

"At that point the coach, Darren Lehmann, defended me. He said to Warner, 'If what he's saying is useful to you take it, otherwise leave it. But don't do all this in public.' He was still annoyed and kind of said, 'No I'm such a successful player, I can't change my game.' So I left it at that."

Sriram on Warner: His greatness was in his ability to revisit the conversation

On the subsequent tour of India (2016-17 Border-Gavaskar Trophy), Warner was dismissed by spinners six times in eight innings, which included getting out thrice to R Ashwin. Sriram then spoke about how the batter returned to their initial conversation long after it had taken place, during Australia's tour of Bangladesh.

"This is the quality of the great man he is," said Sriram. "He brought up this conversation eight months later, telling me, 'You told me back then, but I understand the value of it only now. I'm always beside the line and in white-ball cricket I wait for when I can play the cut. I get just a bit of width, and I will cut. The ball tends to slide on more. But here [in Test cricket], one ball spins and one slides on, and I always have a bat-pad gap. So I have to find a way [around this].'"

"He couldn't play the conventional sweep. He had a problem with his left hip flexor, so that hip wouldn't go down. The right one was fine, which is why he switch hits really well. But the left hip flexor was very tight.

"So he said, 'I can't sit and play the conventional sweep. The two ways of countering this that I'm going to use are the switch hit, or I'll step out and play. Let's work on it.' So we did that, and he hit two centuries in Bangladesh. Mehidy Hasan [Miraz] was not of the quality of Ashwin but he was still able to step out to Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy and he got two hundreds in two Tests.

The coach then went on to praise Warner's ability to retain and subsequently recall the conversation that was nearly a year old. Sriram called it the 'greatest learning of his career' that stars may not like directness initially, but that those truly great players retain information, and extract exactly what they need even from initially unpleasant scenarios.

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