‘Stupid crowds fuel him’

David Warner’s manager says English crowds are “stupid” to jeer the Australian batsman and has defended a plan for the opener to take a vow of silence until he scores a century against a major country.

Warner was heckled while he batted in his man-of-the-match effort in Australia’s opening Cricket World Cup win over Afghanistan in Bristol, the boos becoming more pronounced when he reached 50.

The jeering escalated and became more consistent when Steve Smith joined him at the crease, the first time the pair had batted together in a meaningful match since completing their year-long bans for the ball-tampering scandal last year.

James Erskine, a prominent player manager who has also looked after Tiger Woods, Shane Warne and Michael Parkinson, said hostile crowds would only fuel Warner through the Word Cup and the Ashes.

“I am English. Where the Poms are stupid is that it is actually going to encourage him. It will actually help him. The fact of the matter is, you concentrate, he won’t want to fail, he got 89 [on Saturday],” Erskine said from Spain.

“They will learn very smartly that they are dealing with someone who has got the powers of concentration and his willpower, it’s no different from a Steve Waugh or a Nick Faldo. That’s exactly what will happen here. He knew that [the booing was going to happen].”

As part of Warner’s reintegration process, he has been excused from having to conduct media interviews, However, he is required to be interviewed by the host broadcaster on-field on game day should he be Australia’s best player, as was the case on Sunda.

“There is no point talking. What’s he going to talk about? He got 89 against ... Afghanistan. That means he is playing well - at least he didn’t get out for nought against a schoolboy XI,” Erskine said.