David Warner: Veteran opener David Warner has expressed his ambition to venture into coaching in the near future, while predicting that sledging will soon become a thing of the past in the next decade.
Warner, 37, played his final Test at the SCG and helped Australia sweep the series 3-0 against Pakistan with a fine 57 in his last innings as a Test cricketer. He has already announced his retirement from ODIs, though he left the door open for a return if needed for the 2025 Champions Trophy, but he will be available for T20Is and franchise T20 leagues around the world.
“Yeah, I’ve got ambitions later down the track to potentially coach; I’ll have to speak with the wife first to see if I’m allowed a few more days away,” Warner was quoted as saying by Fox Cricket to reporters at the end of his farewell Test.
Earlier this week, Australian opener Usman Khawaja, also Warner’s childhood friend, claimed that coaching staff and senior players instructed Warner to sledge opponents during the early days of his Test career, which led to him being seen as an aggressive player.
“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. From my perspective, I felt that I could still give the same energy on the field without actually having to get into that battle with the opposition.”
“When I first came in, I didn’t understand the nature of playing the opposition, because I didn’t know who they were, so I was never going to have to sit down with them and have a beer and get to know them, because it wasn’t like that back then.”
“I’ve changed a lot of other people’s opinions as well those I’ve played with and have gone at … they’ve totally changed their opinion of me as well, which is the nature of what cricket is about,” he added.
Warner finished his Test career with 8786 runs at 44.59, including 26 centuries and 37 fifties in 112 matches, becoming Australia’s fifth-leading run-scorer in Test history. “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).”
“I think that’s probably the way forward. I don’t think you’ll see that old aggression again. It will change. In five, ten years’ time, if I am coaching, I think the whole dynamic will be changing, and it’ll be about 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,” he concluded.