David Warner expresses coaching ambition in future

PTI, Jan 7, 2024, 12:07 PM IST

Batting great David Warner has expressed his ambition to take up coaching in future, while also predicting that sledging will be gone from the sport within the next decade as players of different countries share dressing rooms in domestic leagues like IPL.

The 37-year-old Warner played his final Test at the SCG on Saturday, helping Australia sweep the series 3-0 against Pakistan. He has already announced retirement from ODIs but will be available for T20Is and T20 leagues across the globe.

“Yeah, I’ve got ambitions later down the track to potentially coach,” Warner told ‘Fox Cricket’.

”I’ll have to speak with the wife first to see if I’m allowed a few more days away.” The left-handed opening batter was known for his aggressive behaviour against opposition players before the Cape Town ball-tampering saga in 2018.

Earlier this week, Australian opener Usman Khawaja claimed that the coaching staff instructed Warner to sledge opponents during the early stages of his Test career, with the Newlands sandpaper scandal prompting an overhaul of the team’s culture.

“When I came into the team, the way that I went about it on the field was to get in people’s faces, to upset them and to get them off their rhythm when they’re batting. I was moulded into being that person.” He said the art of sledging will soon become a thing of the past courtesy of T20 franchise leagues such as the Indian Premier League, where cricketers share change rooms with their opponents, according to the ‘Fox Cricket’ report.

“I don’t think you’ll see that kind of sledging or anything like that anymore. I think it’ll be just like a bit of laughter, a bit of banter, like me and Shaheen Shah Afridi (in the Test against Pakistan).

“I think that’s probably the way forward. I don’t think you’ll see that old aggression again,” he said.

“It will change. In five, ten years’ time, if I am coaching, I think the whole dynamic will be changing, and it’ll be more about cricket specifics and how you’re winning games, and not about how you get on the skin of batsmen when you’re out there.” Warner finished his Test career with 8786 runs at an average of 44.59, including 26 centuries and 37 fifties. He is Australia’s fifth-leading run-scorer in Test history.

He is also Australia’s second most prolific batter in international cricket with 18612 runs across formats after the legendary Ricky Ponting (27368 runs).