David Warner hopes to be a part of the Australian World Cup squad next year
Former Australia cricket team's vice-captain David Warner is confident of making his way back into the squad just in time for the 2019 ICC World Cup. The Aussie swashbuckler, who was banned for 12 months after the controversial ball-tampering row in South Africa, is making use of the spare time by keeping himself in form.
Warner recently made an appearance in the Global T20 Canada and is presently taking an active part in NT Strike league - a grade tournament held in Darwin.
Warner, who stepped down as Indian Premier League franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad captain after the scandal, is confident of taking part in the 12th edition of the league next year before the World Cup.
"I know the break's doing me well. You don't lose form overnight. I'll wake up every day, face Mitchell Starc, [Pat] Cummins, [Josh] Hazlewood, the best bowlers I feel in the world. If I can face them consistently in training, when the ban's up, that gets you back in. You know there's plenty of warm-up games, I will be in the IPL as well leading into that. There's plenty of cricket, plenty of world-class players playing there to get my preparation on song," said Warner, according to ICC.
The 31-year old has been largely starved of competitive cricket and is making do of whatever he gets to play. He scored a sub-standard 109 runs in nine innings he played for the Winnipeg Hawks at the Global T20 Canada.
"This is just a little stepping stone to keep continuing my progress to putting my hand up and keep enabling myself to keep scoring as many runs as I can for every single team I play for in the next eight months."
The swashbuckler is making the most of his ban by spending quality time with family and working on his game.
"The longest I've had is six weeks off in the last, I guess, seven years," Warner said. "The last 12 weeks before I went to Canada was great, just to reflect on myself as a human being, just be a dad and a husband. It's been pleasurable and I've really enjoyed that.
"We live in a bubble, and we don't realise it until it's taken away from you. There's a lot more to life than just cricket. Things happen for a reason; this is probably my break to keep me going to prolong my career."
Warner, who has played 74 Tests, 106 ODIs and 243 T20s, said that he is enjoying playing grade cricket before he begins a campaign at the Caribbean Premier League to play for St Lucia Stars which commences from August 8.
"At the moment in grade cricket, talking to a few people, they say that competition's going to be weaker. So it's upon us to try and go back and strengthen that as much as we can and try and progress people to come up here and play as much as they can with the local lads.
"Just want to keep hoping and giving back to the guys up here and the community. They helped us a lot before we went for Bangladesh series. That helped Cricket Australia. When I had the opportunity to come up here and play and help the guys as much as I can."
Warner, who was tagged as the mastermind behind the ball-tampering row, saw himself, former captain Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft banned by Cricket Australia for their involvement in the scandalous matter when Australia toured South Africa earlier this year in the four-match Test series which the Proteas won 3-1.
The two former leaders are hopeful of finding their names in the teamsheet as the current Australian squad are facing quite a rough patch.
