“If you are going to drop a captain and not pick him, what message does that send to the team?” - David Warner on SRH sacking
Australian opener and former Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain David Warner has questioned the unceremonious manner in which he was sacked by the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise. According to Warner, firing a successful captain and player and then not picking him sent the wrong message to the youngsters in the team.
Warner, who led SRH to their only IPL triumph in 2016 and was their standout performer for a number of seasons, was sacked as captain midway through IPL 2021. He was also dropped from the franchise’s playing XI.
In an interaction on the chat show Backstage with Boria, Warner disagreed with the manner of his sacking. He opined:
“If you are going to drop a captain and then not pick him in the team after what he has done, what message does that send to the young kids in the team? What message does that send to the rest of the group? What hurt me the most is that the other guys are now thinking, ‘oh, this could happen to me’.”
The 35-year-old asserted that he was willing to have a conversation, but no one from SRH came forward with an explanation. Warner added:
“At the end of the day, whatever happens, cop it cop it on the chin. If you want to have those conversations, just have them. It’s not hard. Don’t shy away from them. I am not going to bite. I am going to sit here and accept that for what it is because you are not picking me in the team.”
Warner played eight matches for SRH in IPL 2021, scoring 195 runs, including two fifties, at a strike rate of 107.33.
“They really felt it and it hurts me” - David Warner on SRH fans’ reaction
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Warner added that he felt genuinely sad for the SRH fans, who had invested their emotions so heavily in the franchise and its players over the years. The left-handed batter lamented:
“It was the pain that I knew was going to hit the fans. They are what makes a franchise. They grow your brand. The greatest teams in the world have icon players. I have been there for a long time. Kane Williamson has been there for a long time, so has Bhuvneshwar (Kumar). You build a brand and you move forward with that brand.”
Warner stated that the messages he got from supporters led to the conclusion that SRH had just taken away a big chunk of their last six to seven years. He explained:
“They really felt it and it hurts me because I am passionate about where I play. I will connect in any way I can with the fans because I know how important fans are. Those kids in the playground wanting to be Sachin, Virat, myself, Williamson, Steve Smith - you name those players, they want to be us. We have to connect with them. If they see something like that, it hurts them.”
With all the mess around Warner’s sacking, it wasn’t surprising that SRH had a horror run in IPL 2021. They finished last in the points table, winning only three of their 14 matches.