THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: His teammate Mitchell Marsh last week called David Warner one of the GOATs of modern-day one-day cricket. Here's the reason why. Warner was the player of the tournament when Australia lifted the ICC T20 World Cup in UAE in 2021 and was the tournament's second-highest run-getter. He averaged close to 50 and was the team's second-highest run scorer (345 runs from eight matches) when Michael Clarke led his team to a title triumph in the ICC ODI World Cup on home soil in 2015. He was also the second-highest run-getter (647 runs from 10 matches) in the last edition of the ODI World Cup in 2019, where Australia lost to England in the semifinals.
As another World Cup comes calling on Indian shores, the signs emanating from Warner's blade are ominous if you are in his rival camp. The burly Australian topped his country's batting charts in the recently concluded ODI series against India smashing three back-to-back fifties. Before he boarded the flight to India, Warner smashed a century and a fifty in the five-match one-day series against the Proteas in South Africa. And all these runs have come at a fair clip as a strike rate of 119.26 Warner has this year in nine matches is the best of his ODI career. Apart from Ireland, where he has played just two matches, Warner's career-best ODI average is in India at 52.27 from 12 ODIs. With the form he is in, the big-stage player should seem at home in Indian conditions in the World Cup.
