Warner to skipper side
Smith set to sit out T20 series
David Warner is likely to be elevated to the Twenty20 captaincy next month as Australia devises a plan to handle format clashes on the eve of the Test tour of South Africa.
Steve Smith is expected to be rested from the T20s and travel early to South Africa where he will be able to lead the nucleus of an Australian team in a threeday red-ball tour match from February 22.
It’s understood Warner would then take charge of the T20 team to take on England and New Zealand in the tri-series, which means if Australia made it to the final on February 21, he and possibly one or two other Test players would miss the pre-Test tour match in South Africa.
Cricket Australia is desperate to minimise disruptions to the Test team’s already limited preparations for such a heavy-duty Test tour like South Africa, but at the same time it wants to try to lift the team’s lowly ranking and win a maiden World Twenty20 on home soil in 2020.
The big-picture look towards the World Twenty20 tournament is why Ricky Ponting has become Darren Lehmann’s assistant coach for the tri-series.
“A tri-series like this will give us a great chance to establish a pattern of play that works best for the players,” Ponting said yesterday.
Warner has strong captaincy pedigree as skipper of IPL powerhouse Sunrisers Hyderabad, however, it is unknown whether he would ever take over the reins of the Australian Twenty20 side permanently, or whether that role would remain a tour-by-tour proposition depending on Smith’s availability.
Certainly Ponting has made it clear in the past that he does not feel it wise for Smith to continue as captain in all three formats, for risk of burning out, and as it stands Smith has not played in a single T20 international since the last World Cup nearly two years ago.
Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland and coach Lehmann have both insisted in recent days that Test cricket remained their No.1 priority.
But Lehmann admitted the timing of the Twenty20 tri-series made preparations for South Africa and move closer to the No.1 Test ranking a juggling act.
“We don’t have much time, that’s the problem with the changeover,” Lehmann said.
“We have a Shield round (starting February 8) and a tour game in Benoni.”
South Africa-bound batsmen like Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh and Peter Handscomb are likely to play in the one Sheffield Shield round they have available, meaning they will have two first-class hits before the first Test against the Proteas starting on March 1 in Durban.
It would be far from ideal to have opener Warner and other T20 candidates like Tim Paine, Mitchell Marsh, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc missing the tour match in Benoni.
However, in Warner’s case he can quickly adapt between formats.