Australia opener David Warner has found the concerns about his form “quite funny”, as the swashbuckling batter revealed that he has been practicing on synthetic wickets and polished concrete to sharpen his batting for the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.
Warner has continued to struggle with form, as the left-hander could manage only 14 in Australia’s opening game against South Africa in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2021, while his scores read 1 and 0 in practice matches against India and New Zealand respectively.
He was earlier dropped by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) from both the captaincy and the playing XI after scoring a total of two runs in two consecutive matches in the IPL 2021 in the UAE.
Amid the concerns over his form, Warner laughed at the matter, saying he hasn’t gotten enough game time to get used to the conditions at the T20 World Cup 2021.
Warner told reporters, “I actually think people talking about my form is quite funny. I laugh at the matter because at the end of the day I’ve played hardly any cricket. The IPL, for example, I had two games and then basically wanted to give all the other youngsters a crack and what-not.”
While claiming the pitches for the T20 World Cup 2021 warm-up games didn’t favor him at all, the opener described the wickets as “low wickets that aren’t great and aren’t pretty” after their use in the recently concluded IPL 2021 in the UAE.
He explained, “These practice wickets for example have been up and about for close to 12 weeks now. So training is quite difficult on them as well considering that the wickets are quite good at the moment. At the moment I’m training on synthetic wickets, some polished concrete to get timing and rhythm, and moving my feet, so that’s helping me. I think Finchie (Aaron Finch) did the same thing the other day.”
Australian openers Warner and Finch have not played a T20I together since September 2020 and said are looking forward to scoring runs for the side in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 ahead of their next match against Sri Lanka in Dubai on October 28.
Warner signed off by saying, “It almost seems like we were in retirement and we’ve come back, the time that we’ve had off. We’ve just started that again and we’re looking forward to getting out there.”
(With Reuters Inputs)
