"I'll make that decision today" - David Warner confirms his ODI retirement
With veteran Australian opener David Warner set to retire from Test cricket following the 3rd Test in Sydney against Pakistan next week, the southpaw has also confirmed his desire to quit ODI cricket with immediate effect. The 37-year-old held an emotional press conference on Monday to announce the news.
The New South Welshman played the last of his 131 ODIs against India during the 2023 World Cup final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. While Warner amassed 546 runs to become Australia's leading run-getter in the tournament, he was dismissed for a single-figure score in the final. However, it didn't stop the tourists from winning that marquee fixture.
During the presser on Monday, the 37-year-old said, as quoted by cricket.com.au:
"I'm definitely retiring from one-day cricket as well. That was something that I had said through the World Cup, get through that, and winning it in India, I think that's a massive achievement. So I'll make that decision today, to retire from those forms, which does allow me to go and play some other leagues around the world and sort of get the one-day team moving forward a little bit."
To go with his 546 runs in the 2023 World Cup, he smashed 345 in the 2015 edition, followed by 647 in 2019. As a result, he sits only behind Ricky Ponting in the list of Australia's highest World Cup runscorers. As far as his overall ODI career goes, Warner amassed 6932 runs at over 40.
"I definitely am keen to pursue playing Big Bash next year" - David Warner
Warner revealed that in addition to playing the Big Bash League in the near future, he will also din the role of a commentator for Fox Cricket. The veteran elaborated:
"I definitely am keen to pursue playing Big Bash next year. There's going to be conversations behind the scenes to allow me to do that. Obviously I've joined the Fox commentary team next year during the Test series against India, which I'm looking forward to."
"There's a BBL window that we're able to play, and then quite clearly there has been a lot of talk about the ILT20 which will be starting, I'm pretty sure, after the BBL. So I would like to play (the BBL) in and around the commentary stuff."
The left-hander is likely to call time on his T20I career after the T20 World Cup 2024.