David Warner aspires to bid farewell to Test cricket on his homeground at the Sydney Cricket Ground next year, in the New Year’s Test against Pakistan. He is currently gearing up for what could be a treadmill of Tests, with Ashes tailgating the World Test Championship final against India next week. Intending to draw the curtains on his Test career at SCG, Warner hopes his final game in Australia colours is at the 2024 T20 World Cup.
He’s blown more cold than hot in recent times, and even sustained an elbow fracture that ruled him out of the second half of Australia’s Test series in India.
“I’ve always said the [2024 T20] World Cup will be my final game, but I think I probably owe it to myself and my family,” Warner said ahead of a training session in Beckenham in the lead up to the WTC final. “If I can score runs here, continue to play back in Australia, I can definitely say I won’t be playing that West Indies series. If I get through this and I can make the Pakistan series, I will definitely finish up then.”
Warner earned his 100th cap at the MCG last summer, against South Africa, lighting up the Boxing Day Test a with a scintillating double-hundred. In March, Ricky Ponting opined that the double-ton was the ideal opportunity for Warner to bid adieu to red-ball cricket. That hundred was his only one since January 2020. Since the start of 2022, he’s averaging 26 with just two fifties and a hundred in his last 24 innings.