David Warner's retirement confirmed by Josh Hazlewood

Veteran batter David Warner's retirement from international cricket was confirmed by his teammate Josh Hazlewood. Warner had already confirmed earlier that the T20 World Cup 2024 would be his last international assignment.

With Australia unable to qualify for the semi-finals this time, there was a dilemma about whether Warner will be available for the next T20 World Cup, which will be held in 2026 and will be hosted jointly by India and Sri Lanka.

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Josh Hazlewood confirms David Warner's retirement

Josh Hazlewood was one of the ten Australian players aged over 30 in the current 15-member squad for Australia. But according to him, there will be no drastic changes to the team for the upcoming days.

The only change is likely to be replacing David Warner with Jake Fraser-McGurk. Since Warner is retiring, an opener's place will be up for grabs and Fraser-McGurk has shown over the past year that he is one of the best for the role.

“They come around pretty quick, the T20 World Cups, every two years. There might be a couple of changes, but a lot of the guys still play in the franchise cricket if they’re not playing for Australia, so they’re available to be picked, Hazlewood said while stating that a lot of current players still play franchise cricket.

“There’s some class players in our 15, and we’ve got a couple on the bench as well. So, you’d think it’d be an actual slow change. I don’t think there’d be anything drastic,” the fast bowler added.

Hazlewood further mentioned the contributions of David Warner as a player for Australia. He said that it won't be easy to replace him but Australia will move ahead.

“We’ll definitely miss him around the group, out on the field and off the field. He’s had an amazing all-format career. We’ve had Test cricket ODI cricket and now T20s. You’ve gotten used to it a bit in New Zealand (not having Warner there)," the 33-year-old quick said.

“It’s always different when you lose a player that’s been there for so long. We’ll move on and push forward,” he added.

David Warner in T20 World Cup 2024

David Warner had a good T20 World Cup 2024 as he scored 178 runs in seven matches at an average of 29.66 and a strike rate of 139.06. He played crucial roles in Australia's wins over Oman, England, and Bangladesh.

Australia had a difficult T20 World Cup 2024 campaign which ended with Afghanistan's win over Bangladesh in the Super 8 stage. Mitchell Marsh and Co. won all its matches in the group stage and looked set to go all the way this time.

But the defeats to Afghanistan and India in the Super 8 stage hurt them badly as they had to rely on other results to qualify for the semi-finals. But Afghanistan registered a thrilling victory over Bangladesh to make it to the tournament semi-finals for the first time.