David Warner to open for Australia during T20 WC, confirms Aaron Finch

Aaron Finch, Australia’s white-ball captain, has announced that David Warner will open the batting with him at the ICC T20 World Cup 2021, which starts on October 17. The revelation comes after the southpaw was cut from Sunrisers Hyderabad’s lineup in the present Indian Premier League. Warner’s performance this season has not been ideal for the orange franchise, and as a result, he was sacked as captain during the IPL’s India leg earlier this year.

The southpaw has also withdrawn from Australia’s two T20I visits to the West Indies and Bangladesh since then. Warner hasn’t played a T20 for Australia since September 2020. Despite this, captain Finch has trusted Warner to do well as an opener during the worldwide event during a press conference.

“Absolutely,” Finch replied, “He’s one of the best players Australia has ever produced. While he would undoubtedly prefer to play for Hyderabad, I am confident that he is still training. He’ll be alright.”

Aaron Finch, who missed the T20I series against Bangladesh owing to a knee injury, will also return to the team. There was also some concern about whether he would be able to recuperate in time for the two warm-up games against New Zealand and India, but the right-hander is confident that he will be healthy for both games.

“My recuperation has gone pretty well in the last couple of weeks, so it’s looking more and more likely that I’ll be fit and ready to go for them,” Finch said. “And just in terms of the intensity with which I’ve been able to train, the amount of accelerations and decelerations that I’ve been able to put load into my knee, that’s all really encouraging. So, no, I’m not having any problems.”