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

Australia’s white-ball captain Aaron Finch has confirmed David Warner will open the batting alongside him for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021, which is set to begin on October 17. The news comes after the southpaw was dropped from the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). Warner’s form this season has not been good for the franchise in orange and that has led to the management sacking him as the captain during the India leg of the IPL this year.

Since then, the southpaw also withdrew from Australia’s two T20I tours to West Indies and Bangladesh. He returned to play for IPL in UAE but has been overlooked after getting to play just the two games in which he scored 0 and 2. Warner has also not played a T20I for Australia since September 2020.

Yet during a press conference, skipper Finch has backed Warner to come good as an opener during the global event. “Yep, absolutely,” Finch said. “He’s one of the best players to ever play the game for Australia. I’ve got no doubt that his preparation, while he would love to be playing for Hyderabad no doubt, I know that he’s still training away. He’ll be good to go.”

Aaron Finch is optimistic about getting fit before the T20 World Cup warm-games

Aaron Finch will also make a comeback to the team after missing the T20I series against Bangladesh due to a knee injury. There was also doubt whether he would recover in time to play two warm-up games against New Zealand and India but the right-hand batter is optimistic of getting fit before both the matches.

“Over the last couple of weeks my recovery has progressed really well 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 that I’ve been able to train, the amount of accelerations decelerations putting load through my knee, that’s all really positive. So, yeah, I’ve got no issues.”

Finch concluded by saying that he had a good training session with regards to fielding and batting. Later he spoke to the surgeon too and he is also happy about the progress he has made. “I had probably my biggest session in terms of fielding, changing direction, and all that stuff with batting involved as well so that’s gone as well as it could be. I had a meeting with the surgeon yesterday and he was really happy with where it’s at,” he concluded.