New Delhi, July 28, 2020: When David Warner leads Sunrisers Hyderabad out on the field for his franchise’s opening game in IPL 2020 – if it does go ahead as planned – his cricket career would have turned the ultimate corner. Or so you would imagine. It would after all be the first time since the ignominy of the ball-tampering scandal that the pugnacious Australian opener will captain a team at a competitive level, a chance to redeem himself with the reins of a high-profile IPL team in his hands.
If only Warner would buy into the “redemption tale” feel too over him being reinstated as Sunrisers skipper. For he isn’t ready to admit it, rather insisting that he looks at it more as an “honour”.
“(I) don’t see it as a redemption tale, I just see it as an honour to captain the Sunrisers in an IPL franchise. I’ve got a great relationship with the players and the staff and most importantly with the owners, and I’ve expressed my gratitude and I thank them for that. I’ll put my thinking cap on and try my best to move us forward to another IPL title,” he said on Tuesday (July 28).
Warner, who led Sunrisers to their only title in 2016, returned to the IPL in 2019 following a one-year suspension. In addition to finishing up as the leading run-getter for the season, he also formed a dominant opening partnership alongside Ashes rival Jonny Bairstow. The Cape Town fiasco two years ago had led to him being replaced as captain at the Hyderabad franchise with Kane Williamson taking over. But Warner revealed that he had still considered himself as a leader in his own right.
“Obviously Kane and Bhuvi (Bhuvaneshwar Kumar)did a fantastic job without me there. And we’ve got a very, very good foundation there, we’ve got a great family. The environment the owners have created amongst the players and staff. It’s great to be back and leading. Having Kane there adds so much value and knowledge of the way the game is played as well. Similarly, we rebound off each other with our ideas quite well. and obviously playing against him – it helps when you are leading a team. but from where I sit, nothing different. I still considered myself a leader when I was there last year, as I said it doesn’t matter if you have a ‘c’ next to your name or not,” said Warner.
Despite his impressive return to the Australian return with the bat – bar the horror run in the Ashes – Warner is well aware that he will never have a “c” next to his name while he’s representing his country at the international level. And there had been talk in some circles recently about whether Cricket Australia (CA) had been too harsh in imposing a captaincy ban on Warner for the rest of his career. It came to light especially after England named Ben Stokes as captain for the first Test against the West Indies in the absence of Joe Root. Stokes had served a six-month suspension, which saw him miss the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia, for the incident outside a Bristol pub. Warner was all praise for Stokes and the way he handled his responsibility according to the reports published in cricbuzz.com.
“I think it was good for him to get that opportunity. Obviously, he’s a world-class player and he was renamed vice-captain after the six-month suspension when he didn’t get to come out here for the Ashes. And that’s just the way the ECB handled that decision and credit to him the way he went about that Test match. He scored a lot of runs and took some wickets. It’s almost like he had his heart set on going out there and delivering what he does all the time when he puts on the England cricket outfit, to be the best person he can be and play the best cricket he can,” he said.
Warner was then asked about whether seeing Stokes being allowed to captain his country was “disappointing” to him, considering he’ll never get to do it. But he dealt with the query as pragmatically as he did with the suggestion that being able to lead again in the IPL was his career sort of coming a full circle.
“From my perspective, it’s about keep on walking out there and putting my best foot forward. My focus is just on preparing for each game and that’s all I can control and worry about. At the end of the day, the decision has been made. It’s in the past now and for me it’s about playing with the freedom that I normally play with and enjoy my cricket,” he said.
