David Warner and Steve Smith expected to cop a lot of boos and sledging from a hostile England crowd when the duo was chosen in the Australian ICC World Cup 2019 squad, as they made their international cricket returns after one-year bans each for ball-tampering in South Africa in March 2018.

Even coach Justin Langer asked the duo to be mentally prepared for some verbal volleys and they received some good ones in their practice matches before the main draw commenced. Australia faced off against Afghanistan on Saturday, in their tournament opener.

They bowled out Afghanistan for 207 and Warner hit an amazing 89* in order to win the match by seven wickets. The crowd booed the pair and two fans watched the game from a balcony dressed as sandpaper in reference to the scandal last year in which Australia hatched a plot to use the material to alter the condition of the ball.

However, in a heartwarming moment, a kid asked David Warner for his autograph as he was fielding on the boundary and the opener happily obliged showing that he had no bitterness towards the crowd for their heckling and vice versa.

Warner was declared Man of the Match for his effort. ”It’s good to be back and it’s a good win for us. There were nerves getting back into the camp and getting back into the full intensity of training, but to come out and bowl the way we did helped us set the tone with the bat. It’s a positive victory and now we move on to the West Indies....There’s a great buzz about this team at this moment,”  Warner said.

(Inputs from Hindustan Times)