Australian opener David Warner on Monday admitted that playing cricket while living inside bio-bubbles has taken a toll on his family life, and said his primary target now is to represent his country in the next two T20 World Cups.
Accepting that the last six months were pretty tough for an international cricketer, Warner refused to commit on the number of series he was targeting to play for Australia in the next 12 months.
“...it’s going to be very difficult to be able to do that. The last six months have been quite challenging, getting used to these bubbles and trying to get used to not having family with me,” he said.
“Each player has different circumstances. The next 12 months are very difficult when you look at the calendar, there’s going to be definitely times where you (wish you) can come home and have time with your family. We’re just not going to get that time to see our family and the back end of being here 14 days inside a hotel, add three kids and a wife into here, it’s going to be very difficult.
“I wouldn’t ever put them in that situation where they have to do 14 days’ quarantine at home,” Warner said.
At 34, Warner insisted that going forward he would prefer playing more T20 matches, especially with two ICC World T20 events lined up in the next two years.
The ICC men’s World T20 will be held in consecutive years after the world body was forced to reschedule this year’s tournament in Australia to 2022. India is scheduled to host the event in 2021.
“That’s something that we have identified as players and coaching staff already. I think you look at our one-day and T20 team, what we are picking is pretty relevant to what we’re going to face with the next couple of World Cups. If we’re going to take time off, it will be between those series. Obviously the preference is playing those World Cups.”
“Given that there’s a T20 World Cup coming up in India, the preference will be the T20 stuff first. But obviously you’ve got that next T20 World Cup as well in Australia. So, there’s a lot of T20 stuff over the next couple of years along with gearing up for that 50-over World Cup in 2023.”