JACKSON BARRETT: David Warner announcing a comeback was not made lightly and muddies the waters for Test team

There is little doubt that if David Warner fronted up for Australia this summer in a shock international comeback, he would score more runs than other options.

But it would be a major backwards step for the Test team and would paper over cracks that are, in part, there due to last summer’s call to give the pugnacious opener a farewell tour of the country.

Australia must pick an opener to bat alongside Usman Khawaja — and they should have done it this time last year.

Warner claimed on Wednesday he would answer an SOS call from selectors to face India in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy if his phone lit up.

It is also understood the three-format great had put feelers out to other journalists this week in a bid to push a similar line and soft-launch his comeback.

“He was putting that around … he rang and I just groaned,” leading reporter Peter Lalor said on SEN on Wednesday.

It indicates this wasn’t an off-the-cuff line tossed away at an event where Warner met King Charles in Sydney.

It instead hints the 38-year-old genuinely believes he would be the best man for the job, with scant consideration for what it would mean for the Test team.

And this is become an increasingly unhealthy role for another batter to walk into.

Steve Smith doesn’t want to do it and is playing he-said-he-said with selectors over how they arrived at that decision.

The bloke who did it last has gone public in his view he would still do a better job despite not facing red balls for a year and Khawaja — set to partner whoever is handed the job — has said he wants Travis Head to do it.

Head and Mitch Marsh were both lightning-quick to shutdown suggestions they could shuffle to the top.

Western Australia’s Cam Bancroft had been in great form for two years, but has found a bad time to be in bad form. He has not passed double figures in any of his four Sheffield Shield knocks this season and is one of a number of candidates tripping over themselves this month.

Calls are growing for Josh Inglis to open the batting. He and Nathan McSweeney, who team hierarchy are often quick to mention, are the two most trustworthy batters in the country at the moment.

If they’re looking for the next-best batter in the country, it’s Inglis. Can he open? He can against the white-ball and he has faced all of these Indian bowlers plenty of times before.