Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has given a crucial update on the veteran opener, David Warner but stressed that the management is in no rush to make the decision about whether he will play in the third Test against India. The southpaw batter suffered a couple of injuries in back-to-back overs during the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Delhi and now he is ruled out of the series.
A delivery from Mohammad Siraj crashed into Warner on his elbow, which resulted in a small hairline fracture before a concussion led to him being replaced by Matthew Renshaw. After losing the second Test to India by six wickets, Australia’s head coach said that Warner is still nursing his injury, and if he remains unavailable then Travis Head will open for Australia.
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During a recent chat with cricket.com.au, Andrew McDonald said, “He (Warner) is still sore at the moment. We are in no rush to make any decisions at this point in time around Davey. There is a bit of unknown there.”
McDonald further said that the management had a discussion before visiting India that if they lost an opener then Travis Head would come in.
Elaborating the same, Andre McDonald said, “If Dave’s unavailable it would make perfect sense. We did discuss before coming over here, that if we were to lose an opening batter that Trav would be one we’d look to put up there. We feel in the subcontinental conditions that he can get off to the fast starts which he showed.”
The Australia head coach also revealed that all-rounder Cameron Green faced “discomfort” while batting during the pre-tour camp. Green was declared 100 percent fit to feature in the third Test, which begins on March 1 in Indore.
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Talking about Green, Andrew McDonald said, “(Green) had a little setback batting in Bangalore (on a pre-tour camp) where he had some jarring and there was a fair bit of discomfort in that finger. If he didn’t have that, I think the second Test was real(istic). But it probably just delayed it those few days. And we contemplated him as a concussion sub (for Warner) as well. We’re better off him loading up for the third Test match and in a good frame of mind.”
