Warner admits he should have bitten tongue

So much for a gentler era. David Warner has admitted he may have bit back a little too strongly when he gained the rare opportunity to reply to a send-off, from Varun Aaron, after replays showed the Indian paceman had delivered a no-ball on day four of the first Test at Adelaide Oval.

Australia's first Test match since the death of Phillip Hughes had been played in a determined but restrained manner over the first three days, as tributes to Hughes with both word and deed took precedence over the usual rounds of verbal confrontation. However Aaron's emotion and Warner's fighting response pushed the game back into more familiar territory, and Australia's barnstorming opener was left to say "that's cricket" after play.

"It's just how cricket's played. When things don't go your way you sort of get the adrenaline up," Warner said. "For him to bowl the no-ball and me to come back in and I sort of went at him a little bit, I shouldn't have, but it got me into another contest and to start again from there. You have to keep riding the rollercoaster as much as you can."

Warner and Steven Smith were involved in several running battles with India's players, Warner notably running down from the non-striker's end at one point to push Kohli away from Smith. Warner conceded such scenes were often the result of players on both sides trying to get themselves into a sufficiently combative headspace. He saw no contradiction between these scenes and the universal concern for Kohli when Mitchell Johnson struck him a stunning blow to the helmet on day three.

"I think the world knows that I like to get involved and that's how I play my cricket," Warner said. "That's how it is, I try to take it to them. If I have to be a bit verbal I will and sometimes I cross the line, I've got to try not to."

Whatever Warner's role in the events of day four - and it must be noted that things calmed down notably following his dismissal, it cannot be disputed that the aggressive footing helps to focus his energy. This innings was his second hundred of the Test and sixth this year. He also made twin centuries against South Africa in Cape Town in March.

"I haven't done it before, so I think so," Warner said when asked if those hundreds put him in the form of his life. "I've got to keep riding this rollercoaster and keep doing my job for the team, which is scoring runs at the top. Sometimes there is an advantage but at the top of the order you've got to bat as long as you can as big as you can.

"For me now it's about when I'm getting those hundreds, I've got to make big hundreds and turn them into double-hundreds for the team. That's my next goal, once I'm in I've got to try to go big like Michael Clarke did against India last time."

Warner again acknowledged Hughes with plenty of gestures skywards, and agreed he had cast his mind back to the left-hander's own twin centuries against South Africa in Durban five years ago. "We've been seeing the highlights of his back-to-back hundreds in the last week or so and it's a fitting thing, he's given me some luck out there today," he said. "But it's a memorable thing to get centuries back-to-back and he made two fantastic hundreds in South Africa."