T20 World Cup unlikely to go ahead: David Warner

In the latest session of Warner’s corner, an Instagram live session hosted by Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner, the Australian left handed batter, in a conversation with the Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma, said that he does not think that the T20 World Cup will go through as per the original schedule in his country in the months of October and November due of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The ICC World Cup will not go ahead here by the looks of it. It will be difficult to get everyone (16 teams) together,” he said.

Warner does not like the idea of playing in front of empty stands, like Australia did against New Zealand in Sydney in March before the ODI series was called off after the first ODI was played. He said, “It was a bizarre experience. You could only hear echo of cricket ball. It was bizarre. We are used to calling ‘yes and no’ while running between wickets but we did not need to do that. It was literally like playing a warm up game. It was surreal. I don’t know for how long you can sustain that. You gain your momentum from home crowd.”

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The duo went on to talk about their experiences of playing against each other’s countries in each other’s countries. Rohit, expressing his eagerness to play in the scheduled 5 Test match series in Australia later this year, said, “I love playing against Australia. When we won last time (in the Australian summer of 2018/19), it was great for us. You guys (Warner and Steve Smith) were missing. What our bowlers and batters did there was amazing. I am looking forward to the upcoming tour already. Hope both boards manage to get the series underway. Will be a great way to kick off cricket in the world.”

Talking about the 2018/19 series, Warner said that it was a bitter pill to swallow for him, as he could not do anything from the outside, watching his team lose and feel helpless.
“Watching that series was hard as you can’t do anything from the outside. But I want to say that India has the best pace attack against left-handers. They zero in one spot and keep bowling there. Mentally, it was great for Indian cricket but it was hard to watch. I felt helpless. Hope it does happen and looking forward to the battle,” said Warner.