Warner has not suddenly become a teetotaller. There has been no alcohol ban slapped on him. It's simply that, nearly four years since he burst into the Test team, Warner wants to prove something to himself.

"We always talk about celebrating our wins and stuff and this is something that I've never ever done in my life, to not do something that I like to do socially, and that's have a drink," Warner says. "But it's more of a challenge to myself to say I can do it. It's nothing else. I haven't been told to, I don't want to prove a point, I just want to tell myself that I can be disciplined."

The other reason for Warner's abstinence is the presence of his nine-month-old daughter Ivy, who is accompanying him in England along with his ironwoman wife Candice. Ivy is with him during this interview, sitting in her pram while her father talks.

"It is quite challenging to go out and have those big nights," he says. "But I think it's more the fact that having a little one and going out and having a big night and then waking up at six in the morning with a monster headache."

It's fair to say Warner probably had one of those on the morning of Sunday June 9, 2013, when he woke up in his room at the Australian team hotel in Birmingham. Hours earlier, and unbeknown to the wider world, one of the more infamous moments in off-field Ashes history had taken place in the Australian-themed Walkabout Inn just around the corner in the city's Broad Street party district.

Warner's swing at England's rising, baby-faced batsman Joe Root would, when news broke of it a few days later, see him denounced as a thug and ultimately led to him missing the first two matches of the Test series.

The then 26-year-old had ventured out after Australia's defeat to England in the first game of the Champions Trophy at Edgbaston with teammates Matthew Wade, Clint McKay, Phillip Hughes, Mitch Marsh and Glenn Maxwell in tow.

"We were in the bar in the hotel, a few of us, and we all decided to go next door and have a couple of drinks," Warner recalls. "We all went out and a lot of the people from the ICC were there as well, but it was more the fact that the bar was next to the hotel. It was convenient; it wasn't a sought-out thing."

The Australians settled into a roped-off area at the Walkabout, where New Zealand players were also enjoying a night out, and before long a group of England players including Root, Stuart Broad and Steven Finn turned up.

"We had a place sectioned off for us and they decided to come in ... it was probably one, 1.30 in the morning ... obviously not part of our group," Warner says. "It was more me giving marching orders in a way."

Warner says that there were "little things that were going on throughout the night" that clearly annoyed him but which he doesn't want to go into. What set him off and triggered his lunge at Root, though, was the young Yorkshireman's positioning of a green-and-gold wig on his chin, which Warner interpreted as mocking the South African batsman Hashim Amla.

"A mate of mine was actually wearing it on top of his head like a Malinga wig, that's what it was. He was wearing it on his head and (Root) decided to come in and take it off my mate's head and start acting the way he did," he says.

"When people are drunk that's what they do but I thought it was a bit inappropriate the way he went about that stuff so I went over and tried to take it off him. I just think in today's society you shouldn't be fooling around with that kind of stuff. And he probably didn't mean anything by it at all but I just thought ... actually I can't say I thought ... I probably let my aggression and alcohol take over there and probably made an excuse for me to go over there and actually take it off him."

It was then that he confronted Root and the so-called "glancing blow" took place. He was dragged away from Root by McKay and the parties promptly dispersed. The matter apparently settled, Warner when back to the hotel although not before, he notes with a smile, "leaving there and seeing Steven Finn asleep in the gutter".

Two days later the phone rang in Warner's hotel room. "I got a missed call at 11 o'clock at night ... I can't remember whether it was from [team manager] Gav [Dovey] or [coach] Mickey [Arthur], saying that I'd been stood down from the game tomorrow which was against New Zealand," he recalls.

"I didn't look on my phone then but at 6.30 the next morning my room phone rang and I got called into Mickey's room. They said that I was going to miss that game, then I was on a phone hook-up with James Sutherland at nine o'clock that morning or the next morning for a phone hearing with the judge [Gordon Lewis] that they used to work out the punishment. I got handed down my punishment and obviously the CEO came out and disagreed with what I said and said it was a despicable act. Which, yeah, it was quite childish on my behalf.

"But obviously", he adds cheekily, "from there it started what I think is becoming a great career so far."

Warner is right - he's well and truly moved on, taking his tally of Test hundreds from three to 12 in the two years since - but even as he's stamped himself as one of the world's best batsmen there are aspects of the affair that still don't sit well.

After being rolled out for a public shaming in a press conference alongside captain Michael Clarke in London he was ostracised from the squad before being sent to South Africa for match practice while the Ashes began at Trent Bridge and then Lord's.

"That's probably the most disappointing thing from my perspective in the way I feel I was treated. Yeah, what I did was wrong and totally out of line ... but I think the way I was dealt with was probably unnecessary in that I had to train by myself away from team and not be a distraction, whereas you'd think that the team would actually galvanise behind you and pull you in the right direction," he says.

"In that sense, I was a little bit gutted but obviously the circumstances that went on from there - the change of coach and stuff - Darren [Lehmann] was a big part in saying, 'We're not having one of our players train by himself, he is a part of the team'.

"I got the tap on the shoulder to say that I wasn't being selected for the [first Test] because I wasn't in form, which I see it as a bit of a punishment but obviously I have to take the word of selectors and they said I have to go to South Africa and score some runs. I went there and I did that."

He scored 193 for Australia A against South Africa A in Pretoria and was rushed back into the team for the third Test at Old Trafford - but in the middle order, not at the top.

"Obviously, I open the batting and I can't remember the last time I waited to go into bat. I think I almost waited five, six hours, and the sense of nerves kicked in, and obviously walking out for the first time since the incident was quite bizarre. I felt like I was at Main Event Boxing."

Warner is on record repeatedly taking full responsibility for his actions that night at The Walkabout. He does, however, maintain that the seriousness of the incident was highly exaggerated.

"I texted Joe the next morning and everything was fine," he says. "I think the way it's been blown up I should have asked him to get in the ring for a re-match or something."

In any case, as he spends his evenings on tour with his wife and daughter, he's highly unlikely to be going anywhere near the notorious venue - even for a green tea, if they serve them - when the Australians are at the same hotel in Birmingham for the third Test this month.

"I just thought for this Ashes and leading up into the next 12 to 18 months - we've got five Tests here, we've got Tests in Bangladesh, we've got six at home and we've got two one-day series at home and away before the World T20 as well - and I'm just seeing this as an opportunity to say to myself, 'What can I do to get the most out of my body'?"

But, he adds: "Look, if we come out and we win the series, for the first time in three or four tours over here, it's going to be hard not to have a beer. I'm definitely not ruling out having a beer if we win the series."