David Warner targets 2023 World Cup as ‘ultimate goal’

MELBOURNE: Australian opener David Warner insists that he has never been in better shape despite the lockdown restricting his activity on the cricket field.

Warner said that he feels well-placed to tackle the bottleneck of fixtures when live cricket resumes and s keen to add more World Cup glory in his bag of accomplishments.

“In the last three years, I’ll have had almost two years off, depending on when we play cricket again,” Warner was quoted as saying by a cricket website.

“The longevity in your body helps. The get-ups of training and playing gets harder as you get older but I haven’t felt any fitter in my career than I do now.”

“As the legs get older time will tell. At the moment I’m feeling as fit as a fiddle and if I can keep running between wickets as well as I have done, who knows. That World Cup is the ultimate goal.”

Warner had earlier said that it is unlikely that the T20 World Cup will be staged in his country in October-November due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regarding his Big Bash options, he said, “All my decisions are based around how much playing and touring I’m doing in the summer. When I last played a game, my mindset in next two Tests was cluttered between playing and not playing shots.

“I know that’s how I play but I’ve reined it in a lot over the last few years and don’t want to be putting myself into a situation again where I’m playing a Test match and then a T20 and then Tests again a few days later.”

“I just want to have that one rhythm going into it. It would be easy to sit here now and say ‘Yes, I’d like to play’ but I have to see what is happening at the end of the year. I’ll have to have a hard think about it depending on the schedule.”