George Bailey opens up on Warner’s selection in Champions Trophy 2025
After playing all of Australia’s matches in last month’s T20 World Cup, David Warner brought the curtains down on an illustrious international career where he scored 18,995 runs from 383 matches across the three formats.
Warner retired from ODIs after playing the 50-over World Cup last year in India. After bidding farewell to the Test and T20I arenas this year, the talismanic batter is willing to pursue opportunities in the various T20 leagues around the world. However, he has expressed his interest in playing in the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan next year.
Australia’s national selector, George Bailey, however, ruled out the possibility of Warner’s participation in the marquee event but said that it is important to laud him for his contributions to the Men in Yellow in all three formats of international cricket.
“Our understanding is that David is retired, and [he] should be commended on what has been an incredible career across all three formats. Certainly, our planning is that he won’t be there in Pakistan,” Bailey was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“You never know when Bull’s joking…think he’s just stirring the pot a bit. He’s had a wonderful career, can’t celebrate it enough, and think as time goes by, his legacy of what he has done for Australia and we reflect back on that, the legend of a player is only going to continue to grow. But as far as this team goes and the journey to transition to some different players, in his case across all three formats, it’s going to be exciting,” he added.
While Australia is looking to inject younger players into their T20 setup, they are not necessarily shutting the door on the veterans. They recently named their T20I squad for the series against Scotland and England. Matthew Wade has been left out of the squad but Bailey mentioned that it isn’t the end of the road for the wicketkeeper-batter. The former Australia captain mentioned that the selectors are looking forward to seeing how Josh Inglis performs.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who’s not there that we’ve put a line through permanently besides David. This is the way we are going with this squad. If opportunities arise or there are gaps at different points there’s nothing to say that Wadey might not come back, but certainly, at this point, we are excited about giving Josh [Inglis] a run,” said Bailey.
Certainly for Maxwell and Starc, the Champions Trophy is very much on the horizon: Bailey
Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Starc are 35 and 34 years old, respectively, but Bailey asserted that both of them are in Australia’s scheme of things for the T20 World Cup in 2026. The two seasoned campaigners have been rested for the T20 leg of the UK tour.
“The next T20 World Cup is 2026, so I imagine there may be some more changes than what we are seeing in this squad but specifically to those guys [Starc and Maxwell], no we haven’t had any conversations about where they think their T20 journey may finish,” Bailey said.
“Certainly for Glenn and Mitch, the Champions Trophy is very much on the horizon, [and is a] very important tournament for those guys. And Starcy in particular, I think he’s going to have a huge summer. Clearly, some of the decisions made around this series are around prioritising and getting guys right for what will be a really big summer. As far as ending players, seeing where guys might finish up, we haven’t had those conversations,” he added.
