At Bellerive Oval in Hobart on Friday, February 9, during the first Twenty20 International match against the West Indies, Australian opening batsman David Warner was playing at his peak. The southpaw hit 12 fours and a six during his innings, scoring an amazing 70 off just 36 balls. Australia amassed a mammoth score of 213/7 in their allocated 20 overs, thanks to his scintillating performance.
The West Indies responded valiantly, scoring 202/8 in the 20 overs given to them, but Australia prevailed by 11 runs. David Warner’s 25th half-century in T20I cricket earned him the Player of the Match title. The 37-year-old announced his intention to retire following the 2024 T20 World Cup during the post-match presentation, when he also accepted the award.
“It was satisfying to record the victory. It was a good wicket for batting, so you had to take advantage of it. I feel fantastic and renewed; I’m excited. We have a fantastic trip ahead of us for the next six months, and my goal is to compete in the T20 World Cup and finish there. Almost the same team is traveling to New Zealand, so it’s critical that we triumph there as well,” David Warner stated at the presentation ceremony following the game.
Notably, the USA and the West Indies will host the T20 World Cup 2024, which starts on June 1st. With 289 runs from seven innings, Warner finished as the second-highest run scorer of the 2021 T20 World Cup and was named Player of the Tournament. In order to cap off his international career, the southpaw would like to see Australia win another ICC Trophy.
In the 100th game of each format, David Warner became the first player to score 50 or more.
The opening batsman for Australia, who just announced his retirement from Test and One-Day Internationals, will play his final match in the longest format against Pakistan in Sydney in January 2024. His final ODI, however, came in the 2023 ODI World Cup final, where Australia defeated India by six wickets to win their sixth championship.
David Warner additionally made history by being the first player to score fifty or more in his 100th game in each format with his 70-run performance against the West Indies in the opening Twenty20 International. On September 28, 2017, in Bengaluru, the opener made 124 (119) against India in his 100th One-Day International. In addition, he hit a double hundred and fifty-five (255) in his 100th Test match in Melbourne on Boxing Day, 2022, against South Africa.
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