- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia’s raging desire to win next year’s World Cup will save the banned David Warner’s international career because the Aussies cannot win the tournament without him.
Australia have always pulled out all stops to win that tournament, a key reason they’ve lifted the Cup four out of the last five times.
This obsession with owning the Cup may well intensify as Australia plot a way to rebound from the ball-tampering scandal which left Australian cricket in tatters.
It is this desperation to re-announce themselves as a world cricket force which will prompt Australia to pick Warner for the World Cup, despite many cricket pundits claiming his international career is over.
They may be rank outsiders to defend the World Cup, but no opponent would rest easy facing a full-strength Australian team boasting the likes of Warner, Steve Smith, Aaron Finch, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.
Australia will have the luxury of entering the World Cup under minimal pressure – public expectations will be extremely low. If they have some luck with injuries and can field a full-strength team they could spring a surprise.
But they won’t pull off such an unlikely victory without the services of their best ODI cricketer in Warner.
Warner is Australia’s only true ODI batting superstar. In the three years before his ban, Warner piled up a remarkable 2,353 runs at 55 in ODIs, by far the most runs of any Australian in that time.
Warner’s 10 tons in that period was bettered only by the world’s undisputed number one ODI batsman Virat Kohli.
What is particularly relevant is that Warner’s strike rate of 104 in that period made him the only member of the top 10 run scorers worldwide who struck at a-run-a-ball or better.
This is crucial because Australia have had a major problem over the last two years with scoring too slowly in ODIs.
(Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
No other Australian batsman can come even close to matching Warner’s ability to not just make lots of runs, but also to make them consistently and at a sprinting pace.
Australia’s next two highest runscorers over that period, Steve Smith and Aaron Finch, had far slower strike rates of 85 and 91, respectively.
To emphasise the difference in their scoring rates, Warner scored at 6.24 runs per over, Finch at 5.46rpo and Smith at just 5.10rpo.
None of Australia’s other main top order options – Travis Head, Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja – can score as quickly as Warner. That further underlines the crucial dynamism he adds to the Australian ODI team.
An ODI top three of Warner, Finch and Smith would give Australia a fantastic base. Of course, it is in the middle order where Australia has continued to struggle.
However, on paper they do have decent options to bat between four and six in Head, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Shaun and Mitch Marsh.
If even just two of those five manage to find form in time for the World Cup Australia would suddenly have an imposing batting line-up, backed by a formidable attack.
I still feel, however, that their hopes will revolve around Warner. If the World Cup still two or three years away then Warner’s critics may have been right – his international career may have been killed off by the ball-tampering scandal.
But the approach of this tournament, and Australia’s preoccupation with holding the World Cup, will give him a lifeline. It may even provide Warner with a chance to prove that he’s worthy of selection in the 2019 Ashes.