Australia coach Andrew McDonald has confirmed that opener David Warner has recovered from his elbow injury and will participate in the upcoming three-ODI series which begins on March 17 with the first match in Mumbai.
Warner struggled in the two Tests he played against India, scoring 26 runs from his three innings before being substituted out of the second match in Delhi due to concussion. He had also sustained a hairline fracture to his elbow during the match after being hit by a bouncer.
“He (Warner) is coming back (to India) for the one-day series, he’s recovered from his injury,” Australia head coach Andrew McDonald to reporters.
The coach also said that Warner was in Australia’s plans for the upcoming World Test Championship final against India which will be played from June 7-11 in Oval, London.
“At the moment Dave’s fully in our plans for the World Test Championship,” McDonald said of Warner.
The left-handed opener has scored 8158 runs from 103 Tests at an average of 45.57 and has 6007 runs from 141 ODIs at an average of 45.16.
Furthermore, McDonald also confirmed that Usman Khawaja, who injured his leg while fielding on the penultimate day of the fourth Test on Sunday, has been cleared of structural damage to his lower leg.
“The scans are pretty positive … so he gets some time to rest up now and look forward to the World Test Championship. I’m sure there’ll be a bit of rehabilitation around that, but at this stage nothing structural or anything that will keep him out for long,” McDonald said of Khawaja.
He also said that despite the WTC final being played immediately after the IPL 2023, Australia will be well prepared for the same.
“It will be squeezed, pretty much straight on the back of the IPL. We’ll head to England with plenty of time to prepare over there. We’ve got things that are almost in place for that – we’ll be well prepared,” McDonald spoke.
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McDonald admitted that the defeat in the second Test in Delhi where Australia suffered a batting collapse, losing eight wickets for 28 runs in barely an hour, was the moment when hopes of a historic series win evaporated.
“It’s a proud group and they’ll see it as a missed opportunity. Not many teams come here and get the opportunity like what was presented in Delhi, and if it had been one-all (after Delhi) who knows how the series goes from there. So there’s a lot of what-ifs around that (but) in the last two Tests we got some solid performances. We’re pretty proud of what the team’s been able to achieve, but in saying that we didn’t achieve what we wanted to here.
We set that as three series in the subcontinent (and) we’ve come away with three wins, three losses and three draws. That’s a pretty tough WTC cycle, so to finish on top of the table with that on the calendar is pretty impressive and we’re the world number one too,” McDonald added.
(PTI inputs)
