Australia’s Warner wants to play on in white-ball internationals

KOLKATA: Opener David Warner has not ruled out playing on for Australia in white-ball cricket even until the next World Cup in 2027 despite having announced that he would be bringing an end to his test career in January.

The 37-year-old, who will play in his third World Cup semi-final on Thursday against South Africa, cited the example of players such as Brad Hogg, Chris Gayle and Shoaib Malik who continued playing limited overs cricket into their 40s.

“Everyone wants to set themselves a realistic goal … I’m still feeling fit,” he told Australian media in Kolkata.

“My goal is still to set my sights on playing the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean (next June) first. And I think from there, I’ll probably decide what I’m going to do with white-ball cricket. “Obviously, you’ve got contracting systems and all that stuff are inside that. So, there’s a lot of things you’ve got to factor in as well. They’re probably going to be conversations I’ll have after this summer.”

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Warner, Australia’s leading run-scorer at the World Cup with 499 runs from nine innings, said he would not accept a central Cricket Australia contract next year, preferring to play on as a freelancer.

“It’s very difficult to say, ‘I want to play Twenty20s and one-dayers’, but you don’t want to be taking contracts from a young kid that’s coming through,” the left-hander added. “(If you accept a deal) you’re legally bound by a contracting system with sponsors and stuff. That’s something that becomes a pain in the backside as well, especially at the stage of my career I’m at.”

Warner announced in June that he wanted to draw down the curtain on his test career against Pakistan in early January at Sydney Cricket Ground, a few hundred metres from where he was born.

That was considered presumptuous by some given his poor recent form in the longest format and Warner said he had not heard one way or another whether he would get his wish.

“You don’t get told anything,” Warner said. “It’s like every white-ball series. No one gets told anything until the white-ball series is done. That’s in everything.”