Australia’s veteran opening batsman David Warner has decided to retire from international cricket, a career that spanned 15 years and was marked by both great achievements and controversies.
After Afghanistan defeated Bangladesh, the former champions were eliminated from the T20 World Cup during the ‘Super 8s’ phase, thus Warner’s journey came to an end in a relatively quite manner.
In Super 8s Group 1 table of the recent edition of Twenty20 World Cup, Australia managed only two points following their sole win over Bangladesh that placed them in third position. They lost unexpectedly to Afghanistan.
Warner last played for Australia in an international match on June 24 when India beat them by a margin of 24 runs; he had made his debut for Australia in a T20I match against South Africa at Hobart on January 2009. In his final game, he scored six runs off six balls before edging Arshdeep Singh to Suryakumar Yadav who took a low catch.
Warner’s retirement has been slow with his final one-day international being the World Cup final win against India in November 2023 and Pakistan is his last test match played so far. He previously mentioned that this T20 World Cup would conclude his international career.
Warner bowed out as Australia’s highest wicket-taker and also as the seventh leading run-getter globally in T20 cricket having amassed 3,277 runs from just over hundred matches at an average of 33.43 with a strike rate of 142.47; among these are one century and twenty-eight half centuries scored by him.
From 2011 until 2024, Warner had an impressive career. Over the course of these games, Warner accumulated a remarkable total of eight thousand seven hundred eighty-six runs at forty-four point fifty-nine on average across one hundred twelve Test matches. His Test career included twenty-six tons with thirty-seven fifties, indicating his consistency and ability to score big runs.
Warner’s record in the fifty-over format is equally impressive. In 161 ODI games, he recorded 6,932 runs at an average of 45.30 with a strike rate of 95.53. This period also saw him compile twenty-two centuries as well as thirty-three fifties, a true reflection of his status as one of the best opening batsmen in ODIs.
He has scored close to 19k runs across all formats and has hit almost 50 centuries in international cricket; Warner’s accomplishments are undeniably remarkable. But this career was also tainted by polemics most notably the sandpaper-gate scandal that happened during South Africa’s test match at Newlands, Cape Town in 2018. Warner has accepted “his name will forever be linked to the sandpaper gate scandal.”
Warner was seriously punished for his involvement in the scandal where Cameron Bancroft tampered with the ball using sandpaper leading to severe consequences. He was subsequently suspended from both international and domestic cricket for a period of one year along with former skipper Steve Smith who got similar punishment from Cricket Australia (CA). Furthermore, the ex-opener received life ban on holding leadership positions within Australian cricket which still affects his career up to date.
“I think it’s going to be inevitable that when people talk about me in 20 or 30 years’ time, there will always be that sandpaper scandal,” he said last week ahead of Australia’s ‘Super Eights’ game against Bangladesh at North Sound.
If they love cricket as well and have real passion for cricket, (as) my nearest fans will always recognize me as that cricketer – the one who had an effort to innovate in this game by following the footsteps of previous openers before me and proceeded to score runs at great speed thereby changing test cricket.
