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Daniel Brettig
January 18, 2012
Umesh Yadav's bouncer is not the only thing making Australia's opener David Warner dizzy right now. At Sydney's Olympic Stadium he was peppered with questions about his captaincy aspirations, which may be pushed further if he is appointed to lead Australia's Twenty20 team in two internationals against India in February.
While Warner deflected most of them with due deference to the incumbent, Cameron White, he also reinforced Australia's desire to complete a 4-0 sweep of India in the final Test at the Adelaide Oval from January 24.
"As Michael Clarke said the other day after the game, celebrate your win, but at the end of the day we want to try and beat the second team in the world four-nil," Warner said. "That's a massive thing for us at the moment. Where we are placed at the moment, our goal is to become No. 1 again by the next Ashes in 2013. If we can keep working towards that, our goals will be achieved."
In response to the question of whether or not India look a beaten team, Warner was frank in suggesting it would be difficult for some members of the touring party to visualise scoring plenty of runs in Adelaide given their recent returns.
"There might be a lot of people in their shed wondering how they're going to score runs," Warner said. "In my mind there is probably only one player, and that's Sachin Tendulkar, who looks like he's using a sight screen when he comes out to bat. [But] the other players, they're all world-class players. You look at the amount of runs they've got in the top six in their careers it's phenomenal ... We are expecting them to show some aggression in this next Test."
Beyond the Test lie the T20s and the triangular ODI series. A groundswell is building to have Warner installed as the national T20 captain, following glowing assessments of his leadership capability from the head coach Mickey Arthur and the former Test opener Simon Katich, among others. But Warner was careful not to tread on White's toes, even as the Melbourne Stars captain endures a dire Big Bash League.
"One day it might happen but for now Cameron White is the captain. And I am still going to be playing by his rules," Warner said. "He is a class player, we've seen that many times with Cameron that he can come out and fire ... with Cameron's ability with the bat to clear the fence, we are backing him 100%.
"I am just excited and overwhelmed that they are looking at me as a possibility for the future. It's a massive achievement for people to say that but at the end of the day I just have to concentrate on my cricket."
For now that concentration is still affected by the after-effects of Yadav's blow to the side of Warner's head, a rare lapse during his 180. Warner said he was in regular touch with Australia's physio Alex Kountouris but was on course to be fit for Adelaide.
"I think I'm over it. I had a little bit of a dizzy spell yesterday morning. I spoke to Alex Kountouris about that and it's generally what happens," Warner said. "I was fine when I got hit. I didn't have a black out or anything. You've just got to try and get up and keep playing.
"At the moment it's a day by day thing. I've got to speak to Alex this afternoon about how I'm feeling. At the moment I'm feeling quite fine. I can't say I have been waking up and seeing Umesh hitting me in the head with the ball. You don't really like getting hit in the head ... Hopefully next time I can just keep my eye on the ball."
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