Warner fires Ashes warning
They may not be favourites for the Champions Trophy, but Adam Collins believes wounds can be opened by Australia
HE’S never been one to hold back, especially where England are concerned, but with the Champions Trophy set to start next Thursday, David Warner has fired a warning shot to the hosts and pre-tournament favourites as he hopes to land an early blow ahead of this winter’s Ashes Down Under. Speaking at the Aussies’ training Press conference on Wednesday, Warner, whose side face England in a potential crunch match at Edgbaston in a little over two weeks, admitted Trevor Bayliss’ England were a “team to beat”, before adding: “The psychological blow will be fantastic if we can get the upper hand on them [ahead of the Ashes].”
In 2004, Australia opened their Champions Trophy campaign against the United States of America. That’s no misprint: the ‘US of A’. They duly toppled them for 65, knocking off the required runs inside eight overs. How this gathering has changed. Now, as Australia learned in 2013 when losing their first fixture, there is no margin for error. It may be a competition that lacks the (welcome) spice of Associate Nations – and even the West Indies in this iteration – but the rapid format lends itself to the best of cut-throat tournament cricket.
With this in mind, World Cup holders Australia are leaving little to chance, the bulk of their squad arriving in the United Kingdom two weeks before the opening fixture – that’s longer than they have in situ before some Test tours. This deliberate preparation is evidenced as well by the intensity of training, both Glenn Maxwell and Matthew Wade hit by bouncers at Lord’s on Wednesday.
There should be a lot of tired boys in Steve Smith’s squad, not least the captain. From the ferocity of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to the relentless demands of the IPL, for the captain and his deputy, David Warner, their Indian excursions totalled four months. But Smith told media in his arrival press conference on Wednesday that he is “feeling pretty good” after bouncing into London two days after losing the IPL final on Sunday.
“It's a relatively quick tournament and all the guys know we have a break after this series and we have to go as hard as we can,” he said. “The big trophies only come around every two years and we want to keep up our white-ball record.”
They have landed with more questions than obvious answers about their batting line-up. Good questions albeit, such as who will partner Warner at the top of the order, credible cases able to be made for Aaron Finch, Travis Head or Chris Lynn. Practice matches against Sri Lanka today, then Pakistan on Monday at Birmingham, Smith says, will sort that out before their opener, a Trans-Tasman clash with New Zealand, a week-Saturday.
“We’ve obviously got a few options there,” Smith said. “So it could depend on how those guys go in these two practice matches.”
England – whose own preparation included a camp in Spain before three official ODIs against South Africa – are deserved favourites. Smith says he doesn’t care, acknowledging their strength but also those many other sides. Even so, no-one in Camp Australia is naïve to the effect it could have to knock a highly-fancied England off with an Ashes series around the corner.
Predictably, Warner was more forthright addressing this topic. “The psychological blow will be fantastic if we can get the upper hand on them because we definitely know they are a team to beat,” he says. “You look at their team and they bat down to 11, and they have got great bowling.”
On that bowling front, what Australia bring to the party themselves is their fabled ‘Fab Four’. Namely: Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and James Pattinson. Never have these fast bowlers – legitimate express pace in the case of three of them, boasting deliveries clocked between 95 and 100 mph – featured in the same squad, let alone the same XI. Once again, that Ashes narrative is compelling.
“It’s phenomenal to have these four unbelievable quicks,” Warner says. “You look at their ages as well, and that they’re are all clever-thinking bowlers, swinging the ball. That is a massive asset in Australia and England.”
Warner too is in the rarest of form in this mode of the international game, tallying eight centuries in the last 12 months alone. But he believes that his job is to set the tempo for those around him rather than winning games himself.
“I know my job at the top of the order is crucial for the follow-on effect,” he explains. “We see this as a team; we don’t go out there as individuals.”
The backdrop to everything the Australians do and say for now is the ongoing distraction of the pay dispute at home that gets more rugged by the news cycle. Upon arrival in England, coach Darren Lehmann brought his players together to have an open discussion about the topic. With the stakes so high, it’s unavoidably a story bigger than what is happening on the field, for now at least.
In the last few days that has extended to reports that Australian players will consider playing in South Africa’s new T20 competition if they are essentially stood aside by CA through to the Ashes series in November. But encouragingly too, reports have emerged that CA could backflip from their original rejection of third mediation suggested by the ACA.
“There are obviously a few things going on,” Smith said. Quite the understatement. Asked by The Cricket Paper if winning the Champions Trophy would bolster the players’ case that existing revenue sharing arrangements should be retained, he reinforced the desire of players to keep standing their ground. “If we win it will be certainly very good for the playing group,” he said. “We are sticking together. We are backing what the ACA is doing.”
A further escalation came amid news the ACA have signed international representatives – including Smith, as he confirmed – to a new separate company that will own intellectual property rights of the players in the event they are out of contract after June 30.Yet for all this doomsday planning, the Australian captain wants to be batting at the Gabba when England arrive.
“We want to play in the Ashes, of course, we want everything to go really well,” Smith said. “So hopefully they get things resolved soon.”
Normal programming, as far as global ODI tournaments have been concerned for the last 20 years, includes Australia leaving with the trophy more often than not. They will be hard to look past. That is if they can themselves look past these pervasive off-field machinations. Determined and well prepared as they are, it may be easier said than done.
The psychological blow [for the Ashes] will be fantastic if we get the upper hand on England David Warner