melbourne, Jan 1
David Warner has announced his retirement from ODI cricket alongside the end of his Test career although kept the door ajar to play the 2025 Champions Trophy if Australia felt they needed him.
“I’m definitely retiring from one-day cricket as well,” he said at the SCG on Monday. “That was something that I had said through the World Cup, get through that, and winning it in India, I think that’s a massive achievement.
“So I’ll make that decision today, to retire from those forms, which does allow me to go and play some other leagues around the world and sort of get the one-day team moving forward a little bit. I know there’s a Champions Trophy coming up. If I’m playing decent cricket in two years’ time and I’m around and they need someone, I’m going to be available.”
An all-format great with plenty of controversy – Warner’s career timeline Barring a surprise return in two years’ time it means that the World Cup final against India in Ahmedabad was his final ODI leaving him with a tally of 6932 runs at 45.30 with 22 centuries. He is Australia’s sixth-highest run-scorer in men’s ODIs and second on the hundreds list behind Ricky Ponting who played 205 more ODI innings than Warner.
Warner had already been expected to miss next month’s three-match ODI series against West Indies so that he could take up his ILT20 deal with Dubai Capitals.
He is also set to miss the T20I matches before then but wants to continue his career in that format until at least June’s World Cup in the Caribbean and the USA. He is one game away from bringing up a century of appearances in every format.
After the ODI World Cup in November, Warner had hinted at pushing on until 2027 although he would have been 41 by then and said that the way the team had rebounded in India made it the ideal finishing point.
“It was a decision that I was very, very comfortable with,” he said. “To win in India, from where we were, was absolutely amazing.
“When we lost two games in a row in India, the bond just got stronger with each other and it’s not by fluke or by chance that we were able to get to where we were. The heroics of Maxi [Glenn Maxwell], the captaincy and the skills and execution of the way that we played against India was phenomenal, and not to dismiss the Kolkata semi-final as well.”
