Cricket star David Warner's historic 335 is perfect and polarising

Yet David Warner's resurrection on home soil has provided those same people with one of the finest accomplishments they could ever wish to see.

His unbeaten 335 for Australia against Pakistan at Adelaide Oval should be revered, yet the fact it continues to divide opinion shows in Warner we have found one of cricket's most intriguing figures.

"How could he pass Sir Donald Bradman's mark of 334," they cry, "and not go for a world record?"

Asking one to wind things up unbeaten on 334 is akin to telling someone to make sure they average just a little less than 99.94 should they find themselves within reach of three figures.

Would we have cried foul if Mark Taylor had called his innings to a close on 335 in Pakistan all those years ago? Bear in mind Matthew Hayden's national record of 380 shows one man has gone well past it.

Hayden's knock suggests going past 334 should not be frowned upon, but the opener who divides opinion like few others only managed to eke out one more run.

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Some say it is disrespectful, that calling the innings to a close level with Bradman and Taylor would have won back some of the respect he lost in the ball tampering saga.

Some clearly forget "had Ijaz Ahmed not knocked the last one down at mid-wicket, I think it was, I'd have ended up on 335 myself because I would have taken the run", Taylor said on Macquarie Sports Radio.

Taylor would declare overnight after finishing unbeaten at stumps.

"I thought about batting on only because I wanted to put them back out in the field for a third day in Peshawar. But that's when the score came into it," Taylor said. "It would have been what I thought was best for us to win the game of cricket."

Perhaps it is also easy to overlook the fact Warner isn't the one making the declaration this time around. That responsibility rests with Australian captain Tim Paine.

And in this case, the declaration time Australia had already settled upon was 5.40pm, at which point Warner was on 334.

The 33-year-old would be given three more minutes to find one more run. Not because he had asked, but because "Painey wanted me to try and get past that 334 mark".

Paine's rise from shock inclusion in the squad to Test skipper brought with it promises of a new Australia.

How would Warner fit into the new mould when for so long he had been the attack dog his teammates had asked him to be?

The answer? Just fine. Much like superstar batsman Steve Smith, who seemingly hasn't missed a beat since serving a 12-month ban alongside Warner for their roles in the Newlands fiasco.

Would declaring one run short of Bradman's mark have won back respect for the team? Maybe. Would we be having this conversation if Warner had been given time to chase down West Indian legend Brian Lara's all-time record of 400? No.

It matters not, because in declaring when he did, Paine allowed Warner to earn his place in history and still put the team first.

So are we too attached to numbers in a game defined by them?

Records are made to be broken, regardless of the romance surrounding Sir Don's standing in the game. His legacy is secure.

This conversation has done little but overshadow what is one of the game's finest accomplishments - the 10^th highest score in Test cricket history, no less.

Come the end of play when Warner sat in front of the media, exhausted, there had been 94,951 individual innings in men's Test history.

The sheer magnitude of what he had just accomplished is easy to gloss over, until one considers he bettered 94,941 others.

Disconnect from the past, and appreciate the rarity before you.