For Warner an ending and a beginning

David Warner is contemplating the end of one partnership while pondering the start of another one.

Barring a late change of heart by Chris Rogers, the Oval Test will be his last in the company of an opening batsman Warner's senior in terms of years and the opening batsman's art. Barring a left-field call by the national selectors, the tour of Bangladesh will be Warner's first as Test vice-captain to Steven Smith.

These are jarring thoughts for those with memories stretching back a couple of years, when Warner was the subject of enormous fascination, given his questionable disciplinary record and tendency to shoot his mouth off. He had also been demoted, if briefly, in the Australian batting order, and seemed to be facing the most uncertain of futures.

In their own distinct ways, Rogers and Smith have been influential in helping Warner to see more to his life and game than power and pugilism. In Rogers, Warner found a counterpoint he could work successfully alongside, as eight century opening partnerships and seven of better than 50 attest. In Smith, Warner saw how a fellow NSW brat-packer could evolve as both batsman and man, emerging as the outstanding leadership candidate to replace Michael Clarke.

"We've played a lot of cricket together - I've played under Smudge," Warner said. "He's got great ideas and I feel that I definitely can work with him. But at the end of the day it's up to the board and selectors to move forward with that. Go back two years my life probably wasn't in the right direction. I was playing cricket for Australia. It's a boyhood dream. But I needed to be put back in my place a little bit.

"Since then I think I've turned a lot around. I've got a lot of hundreds and I'm playing a good brand of cricket. There's been a little bit of a hiccup with the Rohit Sharma stuff but at the end of the day that was on the field and I've learnt to bite my tongue a little bit now. And I've got to keep moving forward and that's my job is to score runs. And if I can keep doing that the rest will take care of itself."

How he goes about scoring runs appears to be changing and evolving, partly in response to English conditions but also as a nod to the longer term demands likely to be placed on Warner by Australian cricket. As Clarke, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and Rogers look set to exit the stage, Warner will have less licence to attack without any thought about the remainder of the innings. In this Ashes series he has shown more application than others considered more likely to possess it. Rogers can be viewed as one reason for that.

"We've come a long way and we've shared a great bond together out in the middle," Warner said. "I've loved every single minute batting together out there. I think we have eight opening hundred stands now and it's something we're very proud of as a - I won't say couple - as a duo out there.

"He leaves this international game and I hope he goes another year or two either in either county cricket or back home because 24,000 first-class runs, 73 hundreds is an amazing achievement by anyone and I don't think he gets as much credit as he deserves.

"I think there's a few names that are going to be brought up. You heard Ricky Ponting mention the other day Usman Khawaja, Cameron Bancroft scored a great hundred the other day in Indian conditions. Joe Burns scored a great hundred the other day in the one-day stuff."

Warner has looked like going on to a hundred three times this series, such has been his command of the bowling, but in contriving to get out he has shown there is still plenty of improvement to be made. In particular a shovel shot used to good effect in Australia and on the subcontinent has had Warner skying catches twice. He does not expect to repeat the mistake at the Oval.

"In one-day cricket, I'm probably looking to hit that over the fence and I think I have to replicate that in Test match cricket," Warner said. "It's more like a half-hearted shot, I see two people go back and I look for the one. I think with the ball moving around over here I've really got to work hard on trying to play with a straight bat.

"I think that's what I really have to work hard on. In Australia I can probably definitely get away with that. But it's something in my game I have to work on and that's something me and Michael Di Venuto will address."

Warner spoke in the West Indies about also re-adjusting his persona, and in this Ashes series he has been notably absent from any obvious confrontations in the middle. There was one brief collusion with Nathan Lyon to goad Ben Stokes in Cardiff, but nothing to attract the attention of the match referee. Warner acknowledges this will be even more a case of necessity winning out as he thinks more about how to get batsmen out and less about provoking them into open conflict.

"I don't think it's so much it gets easier [not to sledge], it's more you're trying to work out ways of getting batsmen out that are in and going back to the notes that you talk about before the game," he said, "making sure they're still in your mind and making sure you're concentrating on the ball ahead.

"The way someone like Joe Root has been batting exceptionally he's been scoring a lot of runs square of the wicket, nothing down the ground. So it's obviously something we as players in general we should be addressing as well. In respects to biting your tongue, it's easy at times. But sometimes it can get frustrating when you're getting walloped around the park."

Warner can remember being walloped around the park during a brief stint as vice-captain of the ODI team in February 2012. "I think that game we were all out for 150, so it wasn't a great game," he said. "I think Ricky at the end of the game put his arm over my shoulder and said welcome to international cricket mate, this is what happens. It can be a good day or a bad day."

A couple of months from now and it might be Warner doing the same for a young turk beside him. Things have changed.