David Warner to play ODI series against India, confirms Head coach Andrew McDonald

Australia’s opening batter David Warner will be returning to the squad for the upcoming ODI series against India as confirmed by Head Coach Andrew Mc Donald. Warner featured in the first two Tests of the Border-Gavaskar trophy but had to fly back to Australia after suffering a hairline fracture in his elbow in the Delhi Test.

McDonald has confirmed that Warner has fully recovered from the injury and will be available for the Aussies in a crucial series keeping in mind the 50-over World Cup that will be hosted by India later this year. Although the 36-year-old didn’t have a great outing in a recently ended Test series, Andrew has stated that he is in Australia’s plan for the Test Championship final against India.

“At the moment Dave’s fully in our plans for the World Test Championship, he’s coming back for the one-day series, he’s recovered from his injury there, so we’ll see Dave back in Australian colours on the 17th and we’ll go from there,” said McDonald as quoted by the Cricket Addictor.

“We are continually talking to our senior players with what they have coming up. Juggling the schedule that’s in front of us. We are staring down 274 days on the road – 144 for the red-ball team, 130 for the white-ball team,” the Australian coach further added.

‘That’s a pretty tough World Test Championship cycle’ – Andrew McDonald

McDonald also reflected on Australia’s journey in the 2021-23 Test Championship cycle and also talked about playing India in the final at The Oval on June 7th.

“We are super excited about that. If you look at what we embarked upon at the start of Pakistan, into Sri Lanka, into India, we set that as three series in the subcontinent. We’ve come away from that with three wins, three losses and three draws,” said Andrew McDonald.

“That’s a pretty tough World Test Championship cycle so to finish on top of the table with that on the calendar is pretty impressive and we’re the World No. 1, too, so pretty proud of what the team’s been able to achieve, but in saying that, we didn’t achieve what we wanted to here in India,” he added.

Australia have suffered four consecutive Test series to India as they finished the four-match series on 1-2. Now both teams will lock horns in a three-match ODI series starting on March 17.