Star Australian opener David Warner, who played a match-winning century knock against Pakistan during his team’s ODI World Cup 2023 match in Bengaluru, has credited Indian Premier League for polishing his ODI cricket skills especially in pacing his innings.
Warner’s extraordinary 163 helped Australia beat Pakistan by 62 runs and climb to the fourth spot in the points table on Friday.
“Yeah, look, for me, I think what I’ve established early on in my career is that 50 overs is a long time. And having played Test cricket, you actually can take that out there and change your gears quite easily,” said Warner in the post-match press conference.
“So, in the first 10, two new balls, you’ve got to respect that. But then if you get away, you can get on top of it and then you can be 50 off the first 10. And then from there, you set the platform for yourself and that’s the energy you feed off. And then you look to try and bat.”
The 36-year-old feels that he has become even more skillful at accelerating through his innings. He credits IPL for helping him polish that part of his game.
“I look to try and get to 35 overs and then from there, try and put my foot down if I’m still in. So, yeah, it’s probably in the back of your mind, you’ve got a lot more time,” the opener said.
“I think that’s where in T20 cricket, I’ve learned a little bit as well to change my gears, especially in IPL. I learned a lot when I was playing for Sunrisers that you’re able to have a lot more time than you think. And I think playing on these surfaces specifically, you know, if you give yourself time at the back end, you can actually score big. And that’s what I felt today.
We missed a little bit with the bat. We set our platform up very, very well, and we didn’t execute as well as we like as a batting unit to post what I thought – 400 was probably on the cards from where we were,” he added.
Warner’s stunning century in Bengaluru meant that he has now scored hundreds in each of his last four ODI appearances against Pakistan.
“I think sometimes you just match up well against certain teams. They’re going to bowl you good balls, and sometimes you’re going to put away those good balls. But I think you just keep backing yourself.
I don’t really look at any stats or I don’t look at anything of which team I have success against or not. It just so happens to be that I’ve scored, as you said, four consecutive hundreds, which I didn’t know about until they came up. But for me, it’s going out there and just doing my best every time I go out there,” the Australian said.
“I think for me, I’ll probably even look at someone like Shaheen Shah Afridi and think, oh, he probably has my measure a little bit. But he doesn’t.
They’re the guys that you try and watch as hard as you can, left arm swinging at about 140 Ks. It can be a difficult task to try and take on but I don’t really have the answer to give you but just go out there and try my best against each opposition,” he added.
The Pat Cummins led Australia will face Netherlands in Delhi on Wednesday.
