Warner hopes to ease early exit pain
Jun 12 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal
DAVID Warner is hoping a short but successful spell with Durham will help ease the pain of Australia’s embarrassingly early exit from the Twenty20 World Cup.
Warner finally arrived at the Riverside yesterday after a series of delays and immediately set his sights on helping his new county reach the knockout stage of the Twenty20 Cup.
The 22-year-old was initially prevented from making his Durham debut by his involvement in the Indian Premier League with the Delhi Daredevils before a call-up to Australia’s pre-tournament training camp forced him to postpone his arrival again.
As a result, the big-hitting batsman missed all of Durham’s opening six games in the Twenty20 Cup, and with Durham losing all but two of those. they will need to win all four of their remaining games to have any chance of qualifying for the semi-final for the second successive summer.
Warner said: “It was disappointing that we lost our first two games and I’m up here now. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board in terms of our Twenty20 cricket in Australia and look at where we went wrong.
“But I’m pleased to be here at Durham and I hope I can get some numbers on the board and help the guys reach the semi-finals.
“We’ve got to win the last four games and hopefully I can play my part. I’ve only played a couple of games in English conditions but I’m trying to adapt and battle away.”
Warner is adamant he has no desire to be regarded as a Twenty20 specialist, even though he has been brought to Durham precisely for that reason.
He said: “There is a good living to be made in Twenty20 cricket, but you will never hear an Australian saying they don’t want to play Test cricket and that is still my number one goal.
“I dreamed about wearing the baggy green cap as a child and that is still my dream now. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into just being a Twenty20 player. I’ve only played one first class game (for New South Wales) but I want to show I’m good enough to do more.”
