Melbourne [Australia], June 5 : Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that the national side will miss opener David Warner’s go-for-win attitude when he leaves international cricket for good after the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup in West Indies and USA.

Warner, who retired from Tests and ODIs early this year, will be in action during the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup in West Indies and USA, taking place from June 1 to 29. Australia has been grouped in Group B along with arch-rivals England, Oman, Scotland and Namibia. Australia will start its campaign against Oman on Thursday.

Warner is coming into this tournament after an underwhelming and ordinary Indian Premier League (IPL) season for Delhi Capitals (DC). After starting with scores of 29, 49 and 52, Warner had a terrible next five games, not even touching the 20-run mark. In eight matches, Warner scored just 168 runs at an average of just 21.00 and a strike rate of 134.40. Only one half-century came from his bat.

The left-handed batter has a chance to make history this time in the tournament. If Australia does end up winning the title, they will be holding the major championships in all formats at the same time and Warner would be the only player along with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Travis Head to have played in all these finals.

Speaking about Warner, Ponting said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, “He is the sort of character you want to have around your team, especially in big tournaments like World Cups. And he is just one of those natural winners. Everything he does, he wants to win. You can see that with his attitude on the field and the way he goes about his cricket.”

“So there is more than just the runs that we will be missing when Warner finally is gone. But hopefully the depth of Australian cricket is good enough to find someone to come in and fill that void,” he added.

Ponting expressed hope that young Australian sensation Jake Fraser McGurk, an “extreme talent” he coached during the IPL 2024 with Delhi Capitals, will be able to fill Warner’s shoes.

“It is going to be really big set of shoes to fill, there is no doubt about that. They have got a lot of depth there. I would be very surprised if he [Fraser-McGurk] does not go straight into the T20 team when David’s finally done. And for that matter, we saw Jake debut for Australia in the one-day stuff in the last Australian summer. I was lucky enough to coach him at the Delhi Capitals this year as well. He’s got extreme talent,” he said.

In nine matches of IPL 2024, Jake scored 330 runs at an average of 36.66 and a strike rate of 234.04, with four half-centuries and best score of 84. He smashed 32 fours and a massive 28 sixes in the tournament in just 141 balls, collecting the bulk of his runs through them. Fraser also re-wrote powerplay record books and became the first-ever IPL player to have three half-centuries in less than 20 balls and the fastest to score a half-century for Delhi (in just 15 balls). With David Warner at the twilight of his career, Fraser McGurk could be the opener Australia needs.

Ponting backed the Australian squad to achieve something special by having all the major world titles across all formats at the same time. He said that the group of players is full of great players with a lot of experience and leaders.

“It is a really good group of players and it’s starting to get spoken about a little bit more. Certainly, even internally, you hear a lot of the players in these current teams [are] actually recognising and talking about how lucky they are and what a special team that they know that they are playing in,” he said.

“When you are involved in a group like that, it is really important that you make every post winner. So they have got an opportunity here in a T20 World Cup to do something really special. And I know they will leave no stone unturned to give themselves the best chance to do that. They have got some very experienced players on their side.”

“They have got a few leaders on the side as well. Mitchell Marsh is the captain of this team and Pat Cummins obviously being the one-day and Test captain, and Pat has just come off a pretty successful captaincy campaign with Sunrisers [Hyderabad] as well in the IPL. So they have got a lot of bases covered and they would not want to let this opportunity slip knowing that it could be the last World Cup that a few of these guys play as well,” he concluded.

Australia: Mitchell Marsh (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins, Tim David, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa. Travelling Reserves: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Matt Short.

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