David Warner Calls For 'Smart Work' From Australia After Their Loss In Southampton

Despite an opening stand worth 98 in pursuit of 163, Australia lost the first T20 to England in Southampton on Friday. Australia produced a tidy bowling performance amid Jos Buttler’s initial onslaught and Dawid Malan’s sparkling 166. After failing to get over the line, David Warner has reacted to the two-run defeat.

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David Warner was the top scorer for Australia with 58 as he perished to Jofra Archer in the 16th over. From there on, the task kept getting more challenging for the likes of Alex Carey, Marcus Stoinis, and Ashton Agar. It came down to 15 off the final over when Stoinis could get only one boundary as the visitors finished with 160-6 in their stipulated overs.

David Warner emphasized on smart work in getting the much-needed boundaries during crucial junctures. The southpaw added that they cannot afford too many dot balls and instead should keep rotating the strike along with finding the fence in the middle overs.

“I think we just have to try to be a little bit smarter and work out how we’re going to hit our boundaries. We have to try to keep rotating strike and keep finding the boundary in those middle overs,” the New South Wales batsman stated as quoted by India Today.

We knew England would keep coming hard: Australian captain

Australian skipper Aaron Finch, who scored 46 and reached 2000 T20I runs, conceded that they struggled for boundaries between the 12-18th over — and underlined it’s not the first time it happened. Finch expects the team to learn the lessons and be better moving forward.

“We knew England would keep coming hard nd we probably struggled to find the boundary in that 12- to 18-over mark. That’s something to work on and that’s not the first time it’s happened, so as long as the boys keep learning and improve at it, lesson learned,” Finch told in the post-match presentation.

At the same time, the 33-year-old did not veer away from seeing the positives, including an inspired bowling performance. Finch continued saying that they should have got over the line and hailed the hosts as a “bloody good side”.

“There was plenty of stuff to be positive about. If you can separate the result and just look at it at individual points, I think there was some great stuff. Obviously it would have been ideal to get over the line, but England are a bloody good side,” the Victorian added.

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