Australia coach Andrew McDonald gives major update on David Warner's availability for Test Championship final

David Warner (Image credit: Twitter)

David Warner's Test career has come under scrutiny after his recent performances in the format. The left-hander scored a double century in his 100th Test in December 2022 but has since failed to perform well in red-ball cricket. Warner even struggled in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India with a top score of just 15 runs in three innings. Amid questions over his place in the Test team, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed that the 36-year-old is in their plans for the World Test Championship final.

The Aussie opener suffered another setback after being ruled out of the Test series against India due to a concussion. Warner got hit on the head while trying to pull a delivery from Mohammed Siraj and also suffered a hairline fracture in his elbow on Day 1. He was unable to recover from the injury and was therefore left out of the squad for the third and fourth Tests. Travis Head replaced Warner in the opening slot and has done well, causing the veteran batsman a threat.

Australia's next assignment is the ODI series against India after which a mega event, the Test Championship final, takes place from June 7 at the Oval in London. Speaking ahead of the 50-over contest, Andrew McDonald confirmed that Warner has recovered from injury and will feature in the ODI series. He added that the opening batter is also in their plans for the Test Championship.

"I think you work through that conversation, and how each player finishes is always different. Some want to go out in a certain way, and others are OK with potentially being dropped out of sides. But 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," the head coach said.

'We didn’t achieve what we wanted to here in India': McDonald

Andrew McDonald hailed his team's effort to remain the world's No 1 Test team and said they are excited to play in the WTC final. But he added that they could not mark a victory in India.

"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.

"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.