Former Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper David Warner has reflected on his feelings when he was sacked as the franchise’s captain mid-season last year.
SRH had won just one game out of their first six matches, and despite Warner scoring a couple of fifties, the management decided to replace Warner with Kane Williamson as the captain and drop the Australian from the eleven. Williamson couldn’t bring any changes in the fortunes of SRH as they finished last with just three wins in the season.
Speaking to his compatriot and legendary pacer Brett Lee on ‘The Brett Lee podcast’, David Warner revealed that he felt gutted about losing the captaincy and being dropped from the side. He reckoned he didn’t need to show anyone his class as his incredible numbers did it.
“Last year, it hit me when I lost the captaincy in the Indian Premier League. I thought I could go back the old way, look at my stats. I believe that I didn’t have to comment or do anything like that post that,”David Warner said.
Warner’s numbers are staggering for any overseas batsman in the IPL. In 150 IPL innings, he has amassed 5449 runs, the most ever by any overseas player, at 41.59 and with a strike rate of 139.96. His average playing for SRH is a marvellous 49, striking at 142, and he led them to their only title in 2016.
His tally of four centuries is the third-most in the league, only behind Chris Gayle (6) and Virat Kohli (5), and his 50 half-centuries are the most by any batter in the history of the IPL.
The southpaw explained that playing and adjusting to the Indian conditions in the summer is a tough challenge for any overseas player. Things have got further challenging during the covid times.
“When you play T20 cricket in Indian conditions, it cooks your body and taxes your legs. You see, Maxwell’s IPL last year, he was cooked after three overs. If you are playing 14 games in the space of 60-70 days with training in between, you can’t physically prepare for that.
“I had seven days to prepare when I first arrived for the IPL. I would be in the sauna for 10 minutes and then run a kilometre on the treadmill and repeat the same,” Warner recalled. “That was the only way I could prepare for the conditions and I’ve done it pretty much every time I’ve gone for the IPL.”
David Warner had made it clear that he wasn’t going to continue at SRH, who have retained Kane Williamson and two uncapped players in Abdul Samad and Umran Malik. Warner will enter the IPL 2022 mega-auction, he’s been listed in the highest bracket with base price of INR 2 crore.
