Retrospective Steve Smith admits David Warner should have opened during the World T20
In an interesting admission, Australian captain Steve Smith has opined that David Warner should not have been moved down the batting order during the World T20. Speaking to Fox Sports, the 26-year old analyzed his team’s performance in the recently concluded ICC event.
When asked about Australia’s different opening combinations throughout the event which did not include the aggressive left-hander, Smith confessed, “He’s probably best suited at the top of the order.”
Elaborating on the team management’s plan to use Warner in the middle-order following the successful T20I series against South Africa, he affirmed, “We had our best six batters playing. Obviously Usman Khawaja had been batting particularly well and Aaron Finch; he’s been playing well over in the IPL as well.”
The prolific run-scorer added, “We had plenty of options and I decided on Davey to bat at number three in the end. He had his opportunities to score runs as well and we just didn’t bat as well as we would have liked in the middle order to get ourselves the totals we needed to win games in India.”
However, the Aussies crashed out of the tournament in the group stage itself. Following a botched run-chase against their Trans-Tasman rivals, they rebounded with a couple of victories. When faced with a must-win proposition against hosts India, Australia ran into a determined Virat Kohli who was at his imperious best.
Smith reminisced, “It was disappointing. I thought we had the team to give that tournament a real shake. Our first game against New Zealand, we let ourselves down there. We should have chased down 140 in that game. From there, I guess you were sort of chasing your tail and had to win every other game.”
The young captain acknowledged Kohli’s impeccable knock and believes that the competition was a good learning experience. He reasoned, “Bangladesh did us no favors in the game against India, and then the game against India I thought Virat Kohli was incredible.”
The right-hander recognized, “To bat the way he did and get his team over the line in a pressure game in India. It didn’t work out the way we would have liked but I think we can still learn a lot from the way we played over there.”
With Australia scheduled to tour Sri Lanka in the coming months, Smith will hope that his team can use this experience to tackle the turning pitches that should be on offer.