The century David Warner shouldn't have made

David Warner shouldn't have made this hundred. Before today, he averaged 24.22 in Tests at the MCG. It was his worst Test venue in Australia.

David Warner shouldn't have made this hundred. Before today, he averaged 35.52 in Tests in 2016, with just a single hundred from 18 innings. It was his worst Test year.

David Warner shouldn't have made this hundred. Today, his innings had more edges than an icosahedron, and much of his strokeplay was about as fluent as his Urdu.

David Warner shouldn't have made this hundred. He was bowled on 81, but Wahab Riaz had overstepped, the second of a remarkable hat-trick of no-balls.

For all sorts of reasons, Warner shouldn't have made this hundred. And yet there he was, sprinting, leaping, waving his bat in the air. He had a century from 113 balls, and finished with 144 from 143. It was a hundred as ugly as any that he has made, but as memorable as any, too. His first ton in a Boxing Day Test was, he said, a childhood dream: "I was a bit emotional and there was a lot of weight off my shoulders."

There was a lot of weight on his shoulders as he walked out to bat. Pakistan had piled up 443 runs to dominate a rain-soaked Test, and, at lunch, only two results seemed possible. But Warner's runs, and the rapid pace at which he scored them, meant that by stumps the match had opened up considerably. Warner - and Usman Khawaja, his partner in a 198-run second-wicket stand - had given Australia hope, although the dire day-four forecast may dash it.

On what will likely be his last day of Test batting in 2016, Warner scored his 17th century and became the sixth-fastest Australian to reach 5000 Test runs. It capped off a strange 12-month period for Warner, which began with an unbeaten century in a similarly saturated Sydney Test against West Indies in the first week of January. Indeed, the bookends of his 2016 look impressive: 122 not out in Sydney, 144 in Melbourne.

But bookends are less revealing than what lies between them. For Warner, this was a year of slender volumes, and not just the latest two entries in the Kaboom Kid series. Here, in full, are his Test scores for 2016: 122*, 5, 12, 22, 0, 1, 42, 41, 11, 68, 97, 35, 1, 45, 11, 47, 32, 12, 144. And that in a year that was also his best in one-day internationals. His form-line has been harder to read than Finnegan's Wake.

It is perhaps not surprising that Warner's slump has coincided with Australia's own downturn, for they rely heavily on him to set the tone at the top of the order. He managed just one half-century in Australia's series loss in Sri Lanka, and just one in their failed home campaign against South Africa. And the nature of this innings makes it difficult to assess: there were, he said "a couple of plays and misses", but that was like saying he had made a couple of runs.

His innings began with two edges from his first two balls off Mohammad Amir, first an outside edge that rolled away to cover, and then an inside edge that fell in front of short leg. And although there were times when he could put away the bad balls, these edges rather set the tone for Warner's innings. It seemed fitting that his hundred came up with an inside edge off Amir that flew safely past the stumps and away for four to fine leg.

It meant that Warner now had Test centuries at all six of Australia's major Test venues, something that his captain Steven Smith is yet to achieve, having failed so far to reach triple figures in Hobart. Past champions such as Adam Gilchrist and Dean Jones never made a century in a Boxing Day Test. But they did make Test hundreds in India, and that is Warner's next challenge. When Australia arrive in India in February, they will need Warner firing to have any chance of being competitive.

Will he embark on that tour in form? It is not an easy question to answer, but nor is whether he ends 2016 in form - a strange thing to say, perhaps, of a man who has just made 144 at better than a run a ball. At least, for all his good fortune, Warner found some fluency after reaching his hundred, and was particularly dismissive of Yasir Shah, whom he struck for five fours and a six.

But enough looking back. The end of the year is a time to look forward and Warner will now do just that - to keeping Pakistan from fighting back in this series, and ahead to the Himalayan challenges that await in India. Against high-class spinners on turning surfaces, Warner shouldn't make big hundreds. But then, he shouldn't have made this one either.