Ricky Ponting: He wants ‘natural winners’ like David Warner in World Cups

Warner’s staged retirement from Australia’s career will end when the team’s campaign in the West Indies ends – with a possible return for next year’s Champions Trophy – following his final Test against Pakistan at the SCG earlier this year.
If Australia can win the trophy in all three formats at the same time, Warner would become one of only four players – alongside Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Travis Head – to have played in all three finals.
“He is the type of character you want to have in your team, especially in big tournaments like the World Cup,” Ponting told ESPNcricinfo from New York. “And he is one of those natural achievers. Everything he does he wants to win. You can see that in his attitude on the field and in the way he does his cricket.
“So there is more than just runs that we will be missing if Warner is gone. But hopefully the depth of Australian cricket is good enough to find someone to come in and fill that void.”
“It’s going to be a lot of shoes to fill, there’s no doubt about that. There’s a lot of depth there. I’d be very surprised if [Fraser-McGurk] doesn’t go straight into the T20 team when David is done. And for that matter, we saw Jake make his Australian debut in one-dayers last Australian summer. I was lucky enough to coach him at Delhi Capitals this year as well. He is extremely talented.”
Regarding the 15 players on duty for the T20 World Cup, where Australia’s campaign begins against Oman on Wednesday night, Ponting said they could achieve something “very special” by collecting three trophies in different ways.
“It’s a good group of players and they are starting to talk about it more,” he said. “Indeed, you can hear a lot of players in these teams [are] actually seeing and talking about how lucky they are and what a special team they know they are playing for.
“When you’re involved in a team like that, it’s important that you make everyone successful at the position. So they’ve got an opportunity here in the T20 World Cup to do something really special. And I know they’re not going to give up and give them the best opportunity to do that and they have a lot of experienced players on their side.” .
“They’ve got a couple of leaders in the side as well. Mitchell Marsh captaining the team and Pat Cummins is obviously the one-day and Test captain, and Pat has just come off a successful captaincy campaign with the Sunrisers. [Hyderabad] and in the IPL. So they have a lot of foundations and they won’t want to let this opportunity go knowing that it might be the last World Cup that a few of these guys play with. “
Source link