Veteran Australia opener David Warner is set to play his final T20 World Cup. This will be Warner’s final assignment with the Australia team as the player retires from the international format of the game. With several Australian stars waiting in the line to take over the opener’s spot, Australia are in a good place – in the white ball formats at least.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Warner said that Australia are fearless in their approach and no one plays to protect their spot in the team. Warner, one of the best all-format players in the team will be hopeful of repeating his success from the 2021 tournament, where he shouldered the responsibility to score the majority of the runs for his team.
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Warner’s preparation, just like in the 2021 season has not been ideal. The left-hander was injured for the majority of the Indian Premier League season and lost the opening spot to promising youngster Jake Fraser-McGurk. Warner played only 8 matches in the IPL 2024 and scored 168 runs at a strike rate of 134.40.
Warner will hope to finish his international career on a high, especially having won the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup 2023 in his final season.
“We’ve always played fearless and I think that’s why we’ve been so successful over the last few years,” David Warner told Sydney Morning Herald.
“We don’t care about our spot in a team, we just care about doing the best that we can, and making sure that whatever we’re doing, we’re trying to be that match winner,” Warner further added.
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Australia have several in-form match winners in their ranks. Travis Head, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc have played in the final of the IPL 2024 and have done well in the tournament. Starc especially was lethal in the playoffs stage of the tournament and played a big part in KKR’s title win. Warner spoke about the match winners in the team and said that Australia had plenty of them in their line-up.
“And the fortunate thing is that we’ve got so many of them. One might come off one day, the next day someone else will come off. So we just know that one person in that top six, if they can get anywhere between 60 to 80 runs at a good strike rate, we know we’re always going to post a good total,” Warner concluded.
Australia will play their first T20 World Cup 2024 match on June 6 against Oman.
Australia’s T20 World Cup Squad
Mitch Marsh (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa.