Sydney
David Warner has flagged his likely retirement from T20Is following the two T20 World Cups to be played in consecutive years, and also explained why he has chosen to skip the Big Bash League for much of his international career.
On an emotional Australian Cricket Awards night for Warner, he took out the Allan Border Medal as the national team’s best player across all three formats despite an abominable Ashes series in which Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne scored the runs that allowed Tim Paine’s team to retain the urn in England for the first time since 2001. He fared far better on home soil after adopting the belligerent, aggressive batting approach that Australian cricket followers have grown used to, and also made runs on the brief India ODI tour last month that was the last series that featured in the medal’s voting period.
At 33, Warner is starting to consider how to approach the remainder of his career, and the dropping of T20Is from his schedule appears the next step he will take to prolong it – albeit only after the T20 World Cups in Australia later this year and in India in 2021.
“I don’t have a BBL team; I took a break during this period, and that was about my body and my mind, making sure I’m getting ready for the next series that comes up,” Warner said. “If you look at T20 internationals, we’ve got back-to-back World Cups as well, that’s probably a format that could be one I’d probably drop in a few years.—AP
