Warner announces ODI retirement ahead of swansong Test at SCG

PTI, Jan 1, 2024, 9:57 AM IST

Batting stalwart David Warner on Monday announced his retirement from ODI cricket alongside the end of his Test career here this week but will be continue to play T20 cricket for Australia.

The 37-year-old swashbuckling opener, however, kept the door open for himself to be available for the 2025 Champions Trophy if the Australian team needs him. Ahead of his swansong Test at his hometown venue SCG, Warner revealed that Australia’s World Cup final victory over India in November was his last match in the 50-over format.

”I’m definitely retiring from one-day cricket as well. That was something that I had said through the (50-over) World Cup (in India in 2023), get through that, and winning it in India, I think that’s a massive achievement,” he said at a press conference at the SCG on Monday.

”So I’ll make that decision today, to retire from those forms, which does allow me to go and play some other leagues around the world and sort of get the one-day team moving forward a little bit,” said an emotional Warner. ”I know there’s a Champions Trophy coming up. If I’m playing decent cricket in two years’ time and I’m around and they need someone, I’m going to be available.” Considered as one of Australia’s and world’s most destructive batters in recent times, Warner ended his one-day career as a two-time world champion after finishing the 2023 World Cup in India as his team’s leading run scorer.

The left-handed opener made his ODI debut in 2009 in a match against South Africa in Hobart. Since then, he has played 161 ODIs, scoring 6932 runs at an average of 45.30 with the help of 22 hundreds and 33 fifties.

He is Australia’s sixth-highest run-scorer in men’s ODIs and second on the hundreds list behind Ricky Ponting who played 205 more ODI innings than Warner.

In the 111 Tests he has played so far, Warner has scored 8695 runs at an average of 44.58 with 26 hundreds and 36 fifties.

He will continue to be available for Australia in T20 cricket and is hopeful of featuring in their World Cup campaign in that format in June in the Caribbean and USA. After the ODI World Cup in India, Warner had hinted at pushing on until 2027 although he will have been 41 by then. He said that the way the team had rebounded in India made it the ideal finishing point.

Warner holds an IPL contract with the Delhi Capitals and he could be one of the most sought after cricketers on the domestic T20 circuit.

”I definitely am keen to pursue playing Big Bash next year. There’s going to be conversations behind the scenes to allow me to do that,” he said.

”Obviously I’ve joined the Fox commentary team next year during the Test series against India, which I’m looking forward to. There’s a BBL window that we’re able to play, and then quite clearly there has been a lot of talk about the ILT20 which will be starting, I’m pretty sure, after the BBL.” Warner has been appointed the new captain of International League T20 (ILT20) franchise Dubai Capitals for the upcoming 2024 season.